What is Power Mapping?
Power mapping—also commonly referred to as stakeholder mapping and power analysis—is a process that involves creating a visual representation of how stakeholders in a system interact with each other in pursuit of individual and/or collective goals. This process can be used in a variety of educational, professional, and communal settings.
For example, activists might use power mapping to determine which community members and politicians to collaborate with in order to get key local legislation passed. A newly-appointed program director at an organization might use power mapping to comprehend and better navigate existing power dynamics at the company, including the value systems and communication channels that those relationships are built on. A housing developer might use power mapping to illustrate the ecosystem of a neighborhood, who is best served and unserved by that ecosystem, and who holds influence over key decisions made for the neighborhood.
Like mind mapping and community resource mapping, power mapping usually involves a visualization detailing the relationship between the items in the map. While a community resource map might feature financial and material capital, and a mind map features thoughts and concepts, power maps typically feature people as the nodes in the map. This can include specific people with names and formal titles (like the president of the United States), formal organizations (like universities or companies), governing bodies (like a school board or committee), or general populations of people (students, voters, investors, etc.).
This article presents ways that educators and students can use power mapping to develop students' sense of personal and professional identity, enhance their critical thinking and creative problem solving skills, and make instruction more culturally relevant, among other advantages.
A Brief History of Power Mapping
Power mapping has firm roots in social and political advocacy. According to Charles McKinney of the African American Intellectual History Society (AAIHS), power mapping—though framed more loosely at the time as getting a "lay of the land"—was a key practice used by organizers and activists in the Black Freedom Struggle and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in the 1960s and 70s to get a sense of who in those communities would support or show resistance to their respective protests. This helped those movements grow through coalition building in the regions they traveled to, while also better preparing their agendas and mobilization strategies to face inevitable opposition.
Since then, power mapping has gained increased attention in the academia, with centers like the Othering and Belonging Institute , the University of Illinois and the Union of Concerned Scientists developing frameworks for the process.
Why is Power Mapping Helpful for the Classroom?
Power Mapping can be used as a tool for not only determining effective strategies for engaging legislators around specific policies, but also as a tool for critically analyzing and reimagining the system itself. This notes an important distinction between power mapping as a tool for creating social or political change within an existing system, and power mapping as a tool to redesign the system itself. Both may be relevant goals for you and your students.
Power mapping has the ability to reveal stakeholders impacted by an issues that are typically overlooked and excluded, giving rise to innovative and inclusive ways to create change in a system. It can uncover hidden agendas and illuminate key questions related to how, when, why, and for whom decisions are made, along with who benefits most from those decisions.
According to the National Education Association, power mapping is most effective when map creators are clear about the goals of their “campaign”, or in the case of students, the learning and advocacy goals. They also say that mappers should identify their target audience, research how related stakeholders in the system influence each other, determine which stakeholders to prioritize in your advocacy, and determine next steps based on what your map reveals.
Regardless of your goals for engaging your students in power mapping, the process has the potential to do the following when infused into your teaching:
Make your instruction more culturally relevant: the problem-centered ethos of power mapping presents an opportunity for students to learn about their relationship to important events happening in the world
Decolonizes students' perceptions of "rational" decision-making; makes them aware that justice is not an assumed value in any line of work and is something that they must intentionally strive toward in order to achieve
Teach students human-centered leadership: students learn leadership skills such as critical thinking, empathy, creative problem solving, demystifying complex systems, and effective interpersonal and public communication by engaging in power mapping
Increase students' sense of belonging and autonomy: when students create a power map of a community that they are all connected to (a school district, for example), students begin to understand the who, how, and why behind key decisions that impact them, which research shows increases their sense of belonging to that community
Promote personal and professional development: power mapping introduces students to new career paths and gives them ideas for how they might create solutions to problems that they're passionate about both now and as a future professional
Encourage collaboration between your students: effective power mapping requires collaboration, both with the stakeholders surrounding the issue and with your classmates or colleagues that are advocating for solutions. Students learn how to consider divergent perspectives and support others as they strategize their solutions
In addition to the learning outcomes above, power mapping might yield the following outcomes when applied in any context:
Reveal key stakeholders that are often excluded from decision-making processes; their relevance to the social issue at hand may be their covert influence over other key stakeholders, or the extent to which they're affected by the issue
Illuminate "policy windows" that allow you to take advantage of when supporters and opposers might be most receptive to your message
Reframe the problem by empathizing with stakeholders; people who are negatively affected by a social issue may have a different perception of that issue than the ones who have the power and influence to shape the public narrative
Cause the mapper to reflect on their connection to the issue by illustrating their direct and indirect influences over stakeholders
How Can You Use Power Mapping In the Classroom
Power Mapping can be a fruitful learning activity for students at all levels when appropriately designed for the grade level of instruction. However, the existing resources around power mapping seem to be focused on engaging toward adult learners. College and professional learning spaces seem best suited for integrating power mapping, while successful middle and high school integrations may be possible when thoughtfully designed.
This section explains power mapping in five steps, along with pedagogical considerations for each step.
1) Create a list of problems that are impacting a community that you are connected to
Application:
A student-centered approach to introducing students to power mapping involves asking them to identify key issues related to a core topic of the class by reflecting on what they’ve seen, heard, or experienced as members of a community. Power mapping can be done individually, in small groups, and as a whole class. Having students choose a context/community to which all students can relate helps their engagement (like an issue within the school district, city, or local economy that students are a part of).
You can scaffold this activity by giving students time to think independently first. Asking students to share out too quickly might not bring forward their strongest and most genuine analyses of the problems. 5-10 minutes of personal writing time works well for synchronous in-person instruction.
Key Questions:
What [insert topic/academic subject] problems do I see in my community (school district, neighborhood, local economy, etc.)?
Why is this a problem?
What are the negative consequences of each problem? Who faces those consequences?
Who benefits from the problem?
2) Draft a problem statement that prioritizes one key issue and who’s most effected
Application:
Ask students to reorder their list of problems with the most important problems at the top of the list. This part should also be independent
For group activities, have students share the top one or two problems from their list
Have students discuss overarching themes among their group list of problems
Students should form a mini problem statement: a one-sentence description that encapsulates the themes they’ve identified
Challenge students to use active voice (ex: “Lack of technology access for rural middle schoolers” instead of “Technology for those who lack access”)
Key Questions:
Which problems do you feel have the biggest consequences?
What major theme(s) do you see across the problems you’ve listed?
Is there a sequential connection to these problems? Is it advantageous to focus on solving one problem before others? Why?
3) Name relevant stakeholders and visually represent their relationship to each other
Application:
Students list relevant stakeholders, including specific people with names and formal titles, formal and informal organizations, governing bodies, or general populations of people (students, voters, investors, etc.).
They should use their phones and/or laptops to research decision-making processes surrounding their problem
Students then use shapes, arrows and icons to illustrate which stakeholders have influence over who and in what ways.
Educators can walk around to each student or group and help them think about how, why, and when those key decisions are made
Key Questions:
Who’s most impacted by the problem?
Who has the power to change it (or not)?
Who is usually excluded from decision-making processes surrounding the problem?
Who does each stakeholder have to report/answer to? What resources do stakeholders find valuable that these people have?
4) Identify and empathize with the most relevant stakeholders
Application:
Students recognize which stakeholders have the biggest influence on the problem and use sources like news articles, interviews, and public statements to see how stakeholders are framing the problem
For this part, it may help students to annotate their map with quotes, examples, and notes explaining aspects of the map
For longer projects, students might complete an empathy map for a stakeholder, or conduct an email or zoom interview with real people impacted by the issue
You may ask students to revisit their problem statement and make any necessary changes
Key Questions:
Who in this map has the biggest influence over the state of the problem?
What are their needs, motivations, and concerns?
How do they perceive the problem? Does this perception align with yours?
5) Co-design viable solutions and strategize advocacy efforts
Application:
Students create an advocacy strategy that considers stakeholders’ needs and motivation, leveraging when and where supporters and/or opposers might be most receptive to their solution
When assessing students, educators are encouraged to focus both on the viability of the solution and on students’ process for reaching the solution, along with their personal takeaways from practicing the exercise
Examples of what students might submit for their final assignment: policy proposal, surveys, business pitch, a new digital or physical technology, congressional address
Key Questions:
What skills, interests and expertise do you have that can help influential stakeholders implement a solution?
How can you include stakeholders in the design of your solution?
Which mediums do stakeholders use to hear and share messages about the problem?
Power Mapping Examples
The resource below from the Union of Concerned Scientists (2018) shows four different types of power maps: relationship circles, quadrant analysis, spectrum of allyship, and landscape analysis. The authors of this resource state that different options may work better for different use cases, depending on the complexity of the problem being examined and the information that the map creator is hoping to uncover.
The screen captures below are of a power map of Maryland’s legislative process for state-wide education decisions, completed by a graduate student in an education policy class. The creator of this map aimed to understand what drives education policy formation in the state. The creator used Miro—a web-based design platform—to not only display the relationship between people and organizations in Maryland, but also display decision-making power, resources, communication patterns, and value systems that undergird activity between stakeholders. This type of power mapping could be a generative exercise that prepares students for a big final project.
Jordan H. Davis is an inclusive pedagogy specialist and professional speaker with over 7 years of faculty development experience in K-12 and higher education. He holds an M.A. in Learning, Design, & Technology from Georgetown University and a B.A. in Communication from McDaniel College.
To request training for faculty on power mapping and other inclusive pedagogy strategies, click visit jdspeaks.com/booking.
Click the button below to download a PDF version of JD's Power Mapping for Instruction Resource.
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