Equal Opportunity

For Children and Youth

Scott Jason Benson, a teacher in Utah, has developed a curriculum unit for the 4th grade on "Inequalities in the Workforce" which addresses the question "Why does everyone have the right to earn a fair wage?" The section below is from the Overview and Rationale. The complete unit includes Teacher Background Information, a Unit Planning Chart, Organization and Subject Matter Overview, Goals and Objectives, a Learning Activities Bank, Assessments, and Appendices. The unit can be found here .

Be sure to read the entire Overview and Rationale section, of which the following is an excerpt:

This unit is designed for use in the 4th grade. My unit theme is "Why does everyone have the right to earn a fair wage?" Even though the Constitution of the United States says that all men/women are created equal, we have learned through history that this is not always the case. Instances of racial, cultural, and gender stereotyping have often scarred our nation's workforce. The National Council for the Social Studies states that learners need to recognize and give examples of the tensions between the wants and needs of individuals and groups, and concepts such as fairness, equity, and justice. I feel that by helping learners examine our nations workforce and some of the typical stereotypes that are contained therein, it will allow them to become familiar with the concepts of fairness and equity and will give them opportunities to apply them in their own lives.
The Utah State Core Curriculum for the 4th grade emphasizes the importance of analyzing the role of the worker in a business. This includes differentiating the roles of workers in a business, identifying the needs of workers, and identifying the workers contributions to business success. Students will be able to see the relevance of this theme in their own lives because all of their parents will be coming from different perspectives in the workforce. Some of the students' parents may be doctors who make $250,000 a year while other parents may be immigrant workers who only make $5,000 a year. Learners need to realize that every job is an important part of a business. Every job. Whether you are a custodian or business chairperson, everyone is a contributing member of the business and should be paid accordingly. This relates to social studies in all aspects because the overall goal of social studies is to help learners become aware that they are and should be contributing members of a society and that they are important to that society.