Developing a Social Location Statement for Teaching Reflection and Growth


Context and purpose: Social location statement

An individual’s social location represents their unique identity based on the communities and social categories to which they belong, including

  • Race
  • Ethnicity
  • Gender
  • Sexual orientation
  • Spiritual or religious affiliation
  • Disability
  • Age
  • Socioeconomic status
  • Primary language

A person’s social location shapes their experiences of power and privilege – or lack thereof – in different contexts. While some aspects of our social location are fixed throughout our lives (e.g., ethnicity), others may shift over time (e.g., disability). Social location impacts how we move through the world, how we view others, and how others view us.

Reflecting on and writing about our social location can guide how we model and embody inclusive and equitable teaching practices. It also supports authentic teaching and learning by nurturing transparency and relationality with learners. Critical self-reflection can guide course design and implementation as we identify our potential worldviews and gaps and seek to mitigate inequities (e.g., in our reading lists, in-class activities, and assessment practices).

At the University of Alberta, instructors are invited to reflect on their social location when applying for the Awards for Teaching Excellence and the Awards for Faculty Excellence. Through a narrative application, instructors are also asked to share how their teaching aligns to Braiding Past, Present, and Future: University of Alberta Indigenous Strategic Plan and the University’s commitments to Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion.


Approaches to reflection: Social location wheel and sample statement

Narrative approaches to teaching, learning, and research enrich reflection, growth, and relationships in the classroom and beyond. They also reduce barriers for educators who have experienced career inequities and make space for underrepresented experiences (e.g., community partnerships, knowledge mobilization, and student mentorship). In October 2024, the Tri-Agency Presidents (SSHRC, NSERC, CIHR) announced that they will be moving away from the Canada Commons CV to a narrative CV, which has also been taken up in the UK over the last several years.

Reflecting on your social location: Social location wheel

The purpose of this exercise is to support you in identifying your social location and thinking about how it impacts your day-to-day life, values, and actions. Here are some ways you might engage in this activity:

  • Complete individually or in conversation with colleagues
  • Reflect using the wheel or by freewriting and journaling
  • Identify your relationship with each of the social categories, reflecting on how your responses impact your worldviews
  • Answer the questions about your identities
  • Consider how your social location might impact decisions around course design, delivery, and engagement

There are several ways in which this kind of reflection can be challenging for people who engage in it. For people who are equity-denied or multiply-marginalized, reflecting on the ways in which social location results in systemic oppression and barriers can be stressful and traumatic. Further, they may choose not to disclose elements of their social location in institutional settings in order to protect their privacy, safety, or well-being. Meanwhile, people who hold social locations that offer power or privilege may find it confronting to consider the ways in which they uphold systemic structures and inequities, even unknowingly. Choosing what, when, and how you disclose elements of your social location is personal. We encourage you to engage in ways that support your health and safety.

Social Identity Wheel

Here are some ways you might engage in this activity:

  1. Identities you think about most often
  2. Identities you think about least often
  3. Your own identities you would like to learn more about
  4. Identities that have the strongest effect on how you perceive yourself
  5. Identities that have the greatest effect on how others perceive you

Reflecting on your social location: Additional guiding questions

  • How do you understand your responsibility to engage in critical self-reflection as an educator, and how might it impact how you come to the classroom to build relationships with students?
  • What aspects of your social location impact or align most closely with your teaching practice? How?
  • How do you make space in your pedagogical approach for the experiences of students with diverse social locations?
social-identity-wheel.png
Figure 1. Social Location Wheel Reflection Exercise. Adapted from Equitable Teaching at the University of Michigan.

Example: Social location statement

The following social location statement has been shared with the permission of Dr. Carrie Smith, Vice-Provost, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion:

Carrie Smith is a white, cisgendered woman and first-generation university graduate who identifies as queer and disabled. She was born and raised on the lands of the Multnomah and the Chinook Peoples, now known as Portland, Oregon, where her mother's ancestors arrived as settlers on the second wagon train of the Oregon Trail. She grew up playing in her father's tea warehouse, where she learned about entrepreneurial creativity and deep care for ingredients that carried with them origin stories of shifting geopolitics and climate change. She completed her graduate work in St. Louis, Missouri, which sits on the ancestral, traditional, and contemporary lands of the Osage Nation, Missouria, and the Illinois Confederacy and is also home to those whose ancestors were forcibly brought to the lands through slavery. Before coming to the University of Alberta she lived and worked in Berlin, Germany and Baile Átha Cliath, also known as Dublin, Ireland, places of gathering and refuge for many different peoples from around the world even as they are sites of exclusion for others, with histories and presents bound up in colonialism, imperialism, genocide, and linguistic and cultural oppression. Carrie now lives as a settler scholar and administrator with her two children and spouse in amiskwaciwâskahikan, the place we call Edmonton, on Treaty Six territory and homeland of the Métis Nation.

Learn more: Additional resources

If you have questions or concerns about integrating social location statements in your teaching and learning materials, reach out to the Centre for Teaching and Learning to support you in understanding the value of reflecting on, integrating these statements into your teaching, and supporting students in understanding social location as it relates to teaching and learning.

Benton Kearny, D. (2022). Positionality and intersectionality. UDL for Inclusivity, Diversity, Equity, and Accessibility. eCampus Ontario.

Centre for Teaching and Learning. Positionality statement. Queen’s University.

Equitable Teaching. Social identity wheel exercise. University of Michigan.

Office of the Provost and Vice-President (Academic). Awards and Funding. University of Alberta.

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