6. WITH WHOM WOULD YOU LIKE TO SHARE THE SAME HOUSE?

Steps of the exercise:

a) Individually, you select with whom would you prefer to share the same house by rating the 14 possibilities from 1 (best choice) to 14 (never!). 15 minutes

b) In groups of 4, you exchange your three best and three worst choices, and discuss the reasons which led to your choice or refusal. 30 minutes

c) In plenary, we debrief and exchange on the exercise. 30 minutes.

A single mother with a 3 year-old child whose father is Tunisian. He visits his son occasionally and sometimes brings along a few friends.

An ex-Yugoslavian refugee family with 5 children aged between 1 and 12.

A family with a 17 year-old daughter attending 11th grade at a secondary school. Father is an accountant in a bank, mother is a teacher.

A single 70 year-old lady living on minimal retirement pension.
A group of 4 Rumanian migrants all working in a restaurant.

A group of 5 young people living an alternative life-style rejecting the materialistic ideology of consumption.

Three Palestinian students who are politically engaged.

A Gypsy family of 5 persons. Father works occasionally and is unemployed in between times. They are part of a larger family which has strong ties and likes to hold festivities.

An American couple without children. Husband is working at the American embassy, wife is taking care of the household and 3 dogs.

Two African artists, approximately 40 years old who live a rather bohemian and unconventional life-style and have many artist friends.

A girl studying piano who has to practice regularly in the afternoons.

A religious Muslim family with 5 children.

A family of African refugees, husband, wife and 2 cousins. Only two of them seem to have a job.

A group of 3 young students whose main passions are rap music and videos.

[Method adapted for use in the IYCS-IMCS seminar "Racism's new look in Europe", European Youth Centre, February 1993. See also: European Youth Centre, Intercultural Learning, Examples of Methods Used, Training Courses Resource File, Volume 4 second edition, 1992]

There is an activity in the all different all equal education pack called "Eurorail a la carte" that uses a similar technique, but a different scenario: the situation is a long train journey and the problem is to decide who you would like – and not like – to share a compartment with.