Piecing Together the Past to Understand Institutional Discrimination: Using a Historical Jigsaw Technique to Reduce Student Resistance to Controversial Topics

Finding teaching strategies that enable students to overcome resistance to politically charged social science terminology is essential to creating an effective learning environment. This article explores how a historical jigsaw activity can be used to defuse student resistance to the concept of “institutional discrimination.” Students in a General Sociology course became experts on a piece of history related to a minority group in their community. In the process of teaching their classmates what they learned, students were able to construct their own understanding of past discrimination and how it relates to current barriers to the advancement of minorities in the community.