Civic Leadership

Structural Change vs. Symbolic Change: Documented Analysis

Grades 6-12  |  BleuLearn Homeschool Practice Pack
BleuLearn Civic Leadership standard: Symbolic change acknowledges a problem. Structural change alters the law, policy, or institutional practice that produces the problem. Both can be legitimate. They are not the same thing. Naming a school after a civil rights figure is symbolic. Changing the school's curriculum, discipline policy, or admissions practice is structural.
Identify a Civic Leader

Name: _______________________________________

Time period and location: _______________________________________

Free primary source about them (LOC, Smithsonian, NMAAHC): _______________________

Document Their Strategy

What specific structural change did they pursue? (Name the law, policy, or institution they were trying to change): _______________________________________

What coalition did they build? (Who else was involved — what groups, organizations, or communities?): _______________________________________

What primary source documents their strategy? (Name a specific speech, letter, legal brief, or testimony): _______________________________________

Symbolic vs. Structural

Name one symbolic action taken in response to the same problem this leader addressed: _______________________________________

Name one structural change that resulted from their work: _______________________________________

Which had more documented long-term impact, and why? _______________________________________

BleuLearn Pause

Pauli Murray's 1944 legal brief was cited by Thurgood Marshall in Brown v. Board of Education (1954). Murray wrote the brief 10 years before the decision. What does that documented timeline tell you about the relationship between civic strategy and civic outcomes?