Agent and Target Skills Models
The Agent and Target skills models for individual development are tools to help people assess their own consciousness and behavior, and that of others, in order to make strategic interventions. The most basic skills are never discarded: they are transcended and included in the more complex skill sets.
What does it mean to be an Agent?We all wear identifications or social memberships. The memberships that we don’t think about are usually our own socially dominant or Agent areas. In these areas, we don’t have to be conscious of our Rank. “Not-thinking-about-it” is an Agent group membership benefit; an example of how having membership in Agent groups saves us energy. The Agent skill expressing this view is Indifference.
Another benefit of Agent group membership is called unconscious supremacy. Where we carry Agent Rank, our conditioning teaches us that our own perceptions and ideas are correct, more valid, or more true than those held by people with Target Rank. Distancing involves noticing and pushing away either through unconscious acceptance of stereotypes or active support of bigotry. Inclusioninvolves using selective perception to emphasize what we have in common with members of a Target group, without recognizing the reality of oppression.
Developing an anti-oppressive consciousness, the skills we call Awareness and Allyship, allows us to step out of our role conditioning and behave consciously in areas where we carry Agent group membership, questioning supremacist notions like the idea that our perceptions are more accurate than those of others. Being aware of our conditioning and learning to value the perceptions of Target group members takes effort.
Indifference – “I don’t notice what I don’t notice.”
Distancing – “Those people are so different (or inferior, or such better athletes) than me.”
Inclusion – “We are all the same, I welcome you to be just like me.”
Awareness – ”I see that I have had unearned advantages simply due to socially assigned Rank roles.”
Allyship – “I have a responsibility to make efforts to create a more equitable social system.”
What does it mean to be a Target? The first couple of Target skills, Survival and Confusion, are responses to oppression shaped by the behaviors allowed for Target group members within the Agent-supremacist system. When using the next two skill sets, Empowerment and Strategy, people with Target group memberships may tend to define themselves by resistance to Agent supremacy.
When using the last skill set, Re-Centering, the relationship that Target group members have to the Rank system is transformed. Re-Centering allows us to observe the effects of supremacy on our own and others’ consciousness and to more genuinely express ourselves. When Re-Centering, we are neither limited by stereotypical expectations nor compelled to resist them.
Survival – “I’ve never felt oppressed as a woman (or other target category)” or “I don’t think that racism is really a problem anymore.”
Confusion – “I’m confused. I think that might have been an incident of oppression but I think maybe it wasn’t. I’m just oversensitive.”
Empowerment – “This is wrong. We need to do something about this. Let us start talking about this issue publicly.”
Strategy – “Is this the place to raise the issue? Will this person be receptive to what I have to say? Is this the best way to use my energy?”
Re-Centering – "I have many skills for responding effectively to oppression, while continuing to move forward in my life."
Developed for ATL Conference Presentation, May 2013, by Aryana Bates, Coryl Celene-Martel, Sharon Simes, and Betty Williams, based on the “Beyond Inclusion” Faculty Learning Community, North Seattle Community College, and the book “Beyond Inclusion, Beyond Empowerment: A Developmental Strategy to Liberate Everyone” by Leticia Nieto with Margot Boyer, 2010. Contact for questions and follow up: