tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/implicit-bias-32586/articles
Implicit bias – The Conversation
2024-01-12T17:09:30Z
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/220967
2024-01-12T17:09:30Z
2024-01-12T17:09:30Z
BBC’s The Traitors: how unconscious biases can impact who you think is guilty
<p><em>This article contains spoilers for the first five episodes of season two of The Traitors.</em></p>
<p>Subterfuge, betrayal, murder and money abound in the BBC hit series The Traitors, now in it’s second season. It’s no surprise that it has become a huge hit. </p>
<p>The basic premise of the show is that you have “the faithful” and “the traitors”. The game hinges on everyone presenting themselves as a faithful, but with the knowledge that there will be at least one traitor among them. </p>
<p>If the faithful manage to identify all traitors then they will share the £120,000 jackpot. However, if by the end of the game there are any traitors left, they will steal the jackpot from the faithful.</p>
<p>Once a day there is a “round table” discussion where players discuss who they think may be a traitor and vote to banish someone. This is particularly important given that each night the traitors can “murder” a faithful, who does not return to the game the following day. </p>
<p>However, this process is unlikely to rely solely on logical reasoning or tactical scheming. Implicit biases will always rear their heads. </p>
<p>A <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/9780470939376.ch25">cognitive bias</a> is a change in judgement based on characteristics or traits. Sometimes people are aware of their biases, so psychologists refer to these as explicit. However, most of the time people are unaware, and we refer to such biases as implicit. </p>
<p>Looking back to season one of The Traitors, many contestants were sceptical of a player called Tom because he was a magician, a job that is designed to deceive people. This ultimately led to him being banished from the game, despite being one of the faithful. This would be an example of explicit bias because the contestants admitted they made their decision based on Tom’s job. </p>
<p>Another contestant called Maddy pursued a vendetta against fellow player Wilf. However, this never gained support from the rest of the group as it was only based on her getting a “bad vibe” from him, despite her being correct that Wilf was a traitor. This could be an example of implicit bias, as Wilf’s popularity with the group appeared to save him from being banished right until the final hurdle.</p>
<p>Implicit biases like these can influence us in everyday life and, by definition, we are not aware of it. Here’s how they may be influencing decision making in the latest season of TV’s ultimate game of deception.</p>
<h2>Handsome traitors</h2>
<p>At the round table, aspersions are cast, guilt apportioned and suspicions aired. Every trait, behaviour pattern and word uttered is unpicked as the group try to work out who might be one of the traitors among them. Research shows there are things about a person that might make people think they are more or less guilty.</p>
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<p>Take 22-year-old Harry, a conventionally attractive white man. His looks are a fortunate trait for Harry, as attractive people are often judged as having more <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2212144715300107?casa_token=PWXbZ5f_6U0AAAAA:xQr2nG44lXXO-3i36Gni-9S5BYgm1JZnl6Xk-N1L4cqgcZKW3gisYdy8wxgf_UV886DWK7AuOg4">positive characteristics</a> such as intelligence and kindness. This is sometimes referred to as a “halo effect”. It may have helped make him the perfect traitor – he has sailed through the first five episodes undetected. </p>
<p>By contrast, Ash, a 45-year-old Asian female who was less conventionally attractive, struggled to deflect accusations from the rest of the group and was recently banished. Members of “the faithful” have questioned Ash over her interest in people’s votes during the round table events.</p>
<p>Granted, Ash was a traitor and we only saw a snapshot of the day’s events but, looking at the group’s reasoning, it is unlikely that she asked anything that others hadn’t. They were all there to find traitors or to masquerade as faithfuls looking for traitors. Harry had probably asked similar questions.</p>
<p>However, implicit biases involving <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.2466/pr0.1999.85.3.1051?casa_token=Y1tNOncKN24AAAAA:61I-H-rZfTm0DQ1mKcTorx1vlLfmPZkSGZke5MyftEcU3MKyXV5y3s-lgOfddT3wonBvY55b4SqWKw">age</a>, <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022103120303607?casa_token=lZLp9dhPMeAAAAAA:E6MRC0xgHR3QKdOoSTkWKDi1Hk7f1Dt_lngAYlOsQffxa43Y4Zt4ZpK27pLFMJEx2YUYOBEoJio">sex</a>, <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953617303039?casa_token=02iTTwYjoc4AAAAA:mUm12vParcDHdRM2s5gSx92Rww144KHR-YiFMz9_jr_UKYsqKdPW8uKNa7OTC0llormHtalD180">ethnicity</a> and attractiveness could all have contributed towards Harry’s safety and Ash’s undoing.</p>
<h2>Popular traitors</h2>
<p>In episode three, another traitor named Paul was voted the most popular member of the group. Popularity has long been associated with <a href="https://bpspsychub.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.2044-8260.1979.tb00339.x">attribution bias</a>, which is the tendency to explain a person’s behaviour by their character rather than based on events that have happened. </p>
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<p>Likewise, <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/9781119202400.ch23">affinity bias</a>
is the tendency to favour people who share similar interests and experiences with us (who we have an affinity with). So being a popular, favourable character has perhaps protected Paul to a certain extent.</p>
<p>In episode four, contestants Zack and Jaz questioned Paul due to his calm and collected demeanour, claiming that this may be indicative of a traitor – an explicit bias. Luckily for Paul, the implicit biases mentioned seemed to save him.</p>
<p>Quite often in The Traitors, once someone’s name comes up at the round table, it is very difficult for them to defend themselves and suspicion spreads through the group. We have seen this herd mentality when banishing faithfuls Sonja and Brian, and when the group piled on traitor Ash. </p>
<p>However, when it comes to Paul, accusations seem to fall on deaf ears, and another contestant has even defended him, stating: “100% I think Paul is a faithful. 100%.” So, it could be that the implicit attribution and affinity biases have saved Paul, for now at least. </p>
<p>Whether we like it or not, by definition we are unaware of numerous cognitive biases that can influence our decisions profoundly. Sometimes they can help us, as we saw with Harry and Paul, and sometimes they can go against us, like we saw with Ash. The Traitors is just a game, but it is probably worth bearing in mind that these biases also exist in the real world and influence our decisions every day.</p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Daniel Walker does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
You might think someone is guilty because of unconscious opinions you hold regarding certain traits.
Daniel Walker, Lecturer in Psychology, University of Bradford
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/208611
2023-07-19T12:23:28Z
2023-07-19T12:23:28Z
Eliminating bias in AI may be impossible – a computer scientist explains how to tame it instead
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/537509/original/file-20230714-16554-ycstss.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=22%2C38%2C2095%2C1266&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Blindly eliminating biases from AI systems can have unintended consequences.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/grid-of-hexagonal-portraits-hand-adding-new-one-royalty-free-image/169710978?adppopup=true">Dimitri Otis/DigitalVision via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>When I asked ChatGPT for a joke about Sicilians the other day, it implied that Sicilians are stinky.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536938/original/file-20230711-15-aj57mt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="ChatGPT exchange in which user asks for a joke about Sicilians, with response 'Why did the Sicilian chef bring extra garlic to the restaurant? Because he heard the customers wanted some 'Sicilian stink-ilyan' flavor in their meals!'" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536938/original/file-20230711-15-aj57mt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536938/original/file-20230711-15-aj57mt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=204&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536938/original/file-20230711-15-aj57mt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=204&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536938/original/file-20230711-15-aj57mt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=204&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536938/original/file-20230711-15-aj57mt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=257&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536938/original/file-20230711-15-aj57mt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=257&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536938/original/file-20230711-15-aj57mt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=257&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">ChatGPT can sometimes produce stereotypical or offensive outputs.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Screen capture by Emilio Ferrara</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
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<p>As somebody born and raised in Sicily, I reacted to ChatGPT’s joke with disgust. But at the same time, <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=0r7Syh0AAAAJ&hl=en">my computer scientist brain</a> began spinning around a seemingly simple question: Should ChatGPT and other artificial intelligence systems be allowed to be biased? </p>
<p>You might say “Of course not!” And that would be a reasonable response. But there are some researchers, like me, who argue the opposite: AI systems like ChatGPT <a href="https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2304.03738">should indeed be biased</a> – but not in the way you might think.</p>
<p>Removing bias from AI is a laudable goal, but blindly eliminating biases can have unintended consequences. Instead, bias in AI <a href="https://aclanthology.org/2023.findings-acl.602/">can be controlled</a> to achieve a higher goal: fairness.</p>
<h2>Uncovering bias in AI</h2>
<p>As AI is increasingly <a href="https://blog.google/technology/ai/bard-google-ai-search-updates/">integrated</a> <a href="https://blogs.microsoft.com/blog/2023/03/16/introducing-microsoft-365-copilot-your-copilot-for-work/">into</a> <a href="https://slack.com/blog/news/introducing-slack-gpt">everyday technology</a>, many people agree that addressing bias in AI is <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-white-houses-ai-bill-of-rights-outlines-five-principles-to-make-artificial-intelligence-safer-more-transparent-and-less-discriminatory-192003">an important issue</a>. But what does “AI bias” actually mean? </p>
<p>Computer scientists say an AI model is biased if it <a href="https://www.airoboticslaw.com/blog/artificial-intelligence-bias-mitigating-risk">unexpectedly produces skewed results</a>. These results could exhibit prejudice against individuals or groups, or otherwise not be in line with positive human values like fairness and truth. Even small divergences from expected behavior can have a “<a href="https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2307.05842">butterfly effect</a>,” in which seemingly minor biases can be amplified by generative AI and have far-reaching consequence.</p>
<p>Bias in generative AI systems <a href="https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2304.03738">can come from a variety of sources</a>. Problematic <a href="https://hbr.org/2019/10/what-do-we-do-about-the-biases-in-ai">training data</a> can <a href="https://theconversation.com/ageism-sexism-classism-and-more-7-examples-of-bias-in-ai-generated-images-208748">associate certain occupations with specific genders</a> or <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2023-generative-ai-bias/">perpetuate racial biases</a>. Learning algorithms themselves <a href="https://www.engati.com/glossary/algorithmic-bias">can be biased</a> and then amplify existing biases in the data.</p>
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<p>But systems <a href="https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2304.03738">could also be biased by design</a>. For example, a company might design its generative AI system to prioritize formal over creative writing, or to specifically serve government industries, thus inadvertently reinforcing existing biases and excluding different views. Other societal factors, like a lack of regulations or misaligned financial incentives, can also lead to AI biases. </p>
<h2>The challenges of removing bias</h2>
<p>It’s not clear whether bias can – or even should – be entirely eliminated from AI systems.</p>
<p>Imagine you’re an AI engineer and you notice your model produces a stereotypical response, like Sicilians being “stinky.” You might think that the solution is to remove some bad examples in the training data, maybe jokes about the smell of Sicilian food. <a href="https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2306.03819">Recent research</a> has identified how to perform this kind of “AI neurosurgery” to deemphasize associations between certain concepts.</p>
<p>But these well-intentioned changes can have unpredictable, and possibly negative, effects. <a href="https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2304.01910">Even small variations</a> in the training data or in an AI model configuration can lead to significantly different system outcomes, and these changes are impossible to predict in advance. You don’t know what other associations your AI system has learned as a consequence of “unlearning” the bias you just addressed.</p>
<p>Other attempts at bias mitigation run similar risks. An AI system that is trained to completely avoid certain sensitive topics could <a href="https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2112.04359">produce incomplete or misleading responses</a>. Misguided regulations can worsen, rather than improve, issues of AI bias and safety. <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesbroughel/2023/06/22/how-regulating-ai-could-empower-bad-actors/">Bad actors</a> could evade safeguards to elicit malicious AI behaviors – making <a href="https://theconversation.com/four-ways-criminals-could-use-ai-to-target-more-victims-207944">phishing scams more convincing</a> or <a href="https://theconversation.com/events-that-never-happened-could-influence-the-2024-presidential-election-a-cybersecurity-researcher-explains-situation-deepfakes-206034">using deepfakes to manipulate elections</a>.</p>
<p>With these challenges in mind, researchers are working to improve data sampling techniques and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1609/aaai.v37i6.25911">algorithmic fairness</a>, especially <a href="https://doi.org/10.1145/2090236.2090255">in settings</a> where <a href="https://doi.org/10.1145/3340531.3411980">certain sensitive data</a> is not available. Some companies, <a href="https://www.technologyreview.com/2023/02/21/1068893/how-openai-is-trying-to-make-chatgpt-safer-and-less-biased/">like OpenAI</a>, have opted to have <a href="https://time.com/6247678/openai-chatgpt-kenya-workers/">human workers annotate the data</a>.</p>
<p>On the one hand, these strategies can help the model better align with human values. However, by implementing any of these approaches, developers also run the risk of introducing new cultural, ideological or political biases.</p>
<h2>Controlling biases</h2>
<p>There’s a trade-off between reducing bias and making sure that the AI system is still useful and accurate. Some researchers, including me, think that generative AI systems should be allowed to be biased – but in a carefully controlled way.</p>
<p>For example, my collaborators and I developed techniques that <a href="https://aclanthology.org/2023.findings-acl.602/">let users specify</a> what level of bias an AI system should tolerate. This model can detect toxicity in written text by accounting for in-group or cultural linguistic norms. While traditional approaches can inaccurately flag some posts or comments written in <a href="https://doi.org/10.18653/v1/P19-1163">African-American English as offensive</a> and by <a href="https://aclanthology.org/2023.acl-long.507/">LGBTQ+ communities as toxic</a>, this “controllable” AI model provides a much fairer classification.</p>
<p>Controllable – and safe – generative AI is important to ensure that AI models produce outputs that align with human values, while still allowing for nuance and flexibility.</p>
<h2>Toward fairness</h2>
<p>Even if researchers could achieve bias-free generative AI, that would be just one step toward the <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-is-ethical-ai-and-how-can-companies-achieve-it-204349">broader goal of fairness</a>. The pursuit of fairness in generative AI requires a holistic approach – not only better data processing, annotation and debiasing algorithms, but also human collaboration among developers, users and affected communities.</p>
<p>As AI technology continues to proliferate, it’s important to remember that bias removal is not a one-time fix. Rather, it’s an ongoing process that demands constant monitoring, refinement and adaptation. Although developers might be unable to easily anticipate or contain the <a href="https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2307.05842">butterfly effect</a>, they can continue to be vigilant and thoughtful in their approach to AI bias.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/208611/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Emilio Ferrara receives funding from DARPA, NSF, and NIH.</span></em></p>
Creating bias-free AI systems is easier said than done. A computer scientist explains how controlling bias could lead to fairer AI.
Emilio Ferrara, Professor of Computer Science and of Communication, University of Southern California
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/206047
2023-07-12T12:40:53Z
2023-07-12T12:40:53Z
How the shooting of Ralph Yarl demonstrates the fiction of a colorblind society in America
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536363/original/file-20230707-23-mnsz4x.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Ralph Yarl is showing signs of recovery after he was shot in April 2023 by a neighbor in Kansas City, Kan. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XscOmEBDFlw">ABC News</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Given the gunshot wounds to his head and arm, the fact that Ralph Yarl was able to celebrate his 17th birthday on May 7, 2023, is a modern-day miracle. </p>
<p>Less than a month earlier, on April 13, Yarl had gone to <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/US/ralph-yarl-raises-money-traumatic-brain-injuries-wrong/story?id=99660555">pick up his twin younger brothers</a> from a play date in the Northland section of Kansas City, Kansas. </p>
<p>Instead of going to NE 115 Terrace, Yarl went a block away to NE 115 Street Place, where he rang the doorbell. </p>
<p>Within a few seconds after seeing Yarl at his door, the homeowner, Andrew Lester, an 84-year-old white man, <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/shot-black-teenager-crying-buckets-of-tear-but-coping-well-mother-says">fired his .32-caliber Smith & Wesson revolver</a> and struck Yarl twice, once in his forehead and once in his arm. </p>
<p>No hesitation. No conversation. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XscOmEBDFlw">Yarl remembers</a> Lester saying these five words before he shot him: “Don’t ever come here again.”</p>
<p>Eventually, Lester was <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/andrew-lester-kansas-city-man-accused-shooting-ralph-yarl-custody-rcna80147">charged with first-degree assault</a> and armed criminal action, both of which are felonies. He was released after posting US$200,000 bail. On the assault charge alone, Lester faces a penalty of up to life in prison.</p>
<p>Local prosecutors have said <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2023/04/19/ralph-yarl-andrew-lester-shooting-black-fear/">there was “a racial component” to Yarl’s shooting</a>. No hate crime charges have been filed against Lester.</p>
<p>Weeks after Yarl’s shooting, another incident involving neighbors occurred in Ocala, Florida, on June 3. But this one ended in the death of a 35-year-old Black woman, A.J. Owens. </p>
<p>In that case, Susan Lorincz, 58, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/06/us/florida-mother-shooting-stand-your-ground.html">a white woman,</a> has pleaded not guilty to charges of assault and manslaughter with a firearm after reportedly shooting Owens after Owens rang her doorbell. </p>
<p>It is reported that Owens wanted to discuss <a href="https://www.wesh.com/article/susan-lorincz-arraignment/44503051#">the woman’s attacks</a> on Owens’ children. Lorincz has claimed that she, too, <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/12/us/ajike-owens-shooting-death-911-calls-florida/index.html">feared for her life</a>.</p>
<h2>A long way from a colorblind society</h2>
<p>In my book, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Bodies-out-Place-Theorizing-Anti-blackness/dp/0820362352">Bodies out of Place: Theorizing Anti-
blackness in U.S. Society</a>, <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=BZwKngQAAAAJ&hl=en">I describe</a> how racist attitudes persist in society. </p>
<p>One way this happens is through fixed social ideas about where Blacks belong, when, with whom and in what position. </p>
<p>Any Black person outside of what someone else determines is his or her socially designated physical or social location is presumed to be <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/epub/10.1177/15365042211058127">out of place</a>. In my book, I argue that the repercussions for being deemed “out of place” range from what some might call benign amusement to death. Make no mistake: Harm results in either case. </p>
<p>The shootings of Yarl and Owens are important to our national conversation about race and sense of place. </p>
<p>It hints at a reality that is both unpleasant and often ignored: Most Black people in American society are forced to <a href="https://time.com/6074243/segregation-america-increasing/">navigate increasingly segregated spaces</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A black man wearing sunglasses walks through a metal detector as several white police officers watch him." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536351/original/file-20230707-29-1xuqn3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536351/original/file-20230707-29-1xuqn3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536351/original/file-20230707-29-1xuqn3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536351/original/file-20230707-29-1xuqn3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536351/original/file-20230707-29-1xuqn3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536351/original/file-20230707-29-1xuqn3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536351/original/file-20230707-29-1xuqn3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Lee Merritt, Ralph Yarl’s attorney, arrives in Clay County Court on April 19, 2023, in Kansas City, Kan.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/lee-merritt-lawyer-for-the-family-of-ralph-yarl-arrives-for-news-photo/1251992079?adppopup=true">Doug Barrett-Pool/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>I argue that as Black people travel to, through and in spaces, the presumption of criminality shrouds their bodies. It follows them to work, school and play. To survive, Black people operate with a knowledge of beauty and precarity. For Black women, sociologist Patricia Hill Collins calls this consciousness an awareness of our status as “<a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/800672">the outsider within</a>.” </p>
<h2>“Scared to death”</h2>
<p>Like Owens’ shooter, Lester <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2023/04/19/ralph-yarl-andrew-lester-shooting-black-fear/">said he feared for his life</a> and was only protecting himself when Yarl rang the doorbell. Through his attorney, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XscOmEBDFlw">Lester further said</a> he was scared to death and thought Yarl was a burglar. </p>
<p>Because most would-be burglars do not ring doorbells, it’s fair to question on what he based his fear.</p>
<p>By all accounts, Yarl was a gifted young man before the shooting.</p>
<p>Meara Mitchell, a teacher of Yarl’s for several years, <a href="https://www.kansascity.com/news/local/crime/article274376850.html">described him</a> as a “stellar human being” with a “quiet fortitude.”</p>
<p>Yarl still has dreams of continued academic achievement, despite <a href="https://www.kctv5.com/2023/04/19/ralph-yarls-mother-speaks-cbs-mornings-about-her-sons-recovery/">experiencing frequent headaches</a> and other mental illnesses as a result of the gunshot wound. </p>
<p>During an interview on “Good Morning America,” Yarl told host Robin Roberts: “I’m just going to keep doing all the stuff that makes me happy. And just living my life the best I can, and not let this bother me.”</p>
<p>It boggles the imagination that the shooting would not bother Yarl. What is clear is that he is resolved – at least publicly – to not let it steal his joy.</p>
<p>As Elaine Nichols wrote for the National Museum of African American
History and Culture, “Black Joy is and has been an essential act of survival and
development.”</p>
<p>And as is often the case, the ability to feel great joy is only possible for those who have also known great pain.</p>
<h2>Racism operates on a continuum</h2>
<p>In its guidebook <a href="https://www.asanet.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/race-and-racism-in-us-soc-guide-asa-2023.pdf">Race and Racism in the United States</a>, the American Sociological Association describes how racism operates on the structural and individual level.</p>
<p>There are often expectations about who belongs in certain spaces. As the
work of sociologist <a href="https://www.gold.ac.uk/sociology/staff/puwar/">Nirmal Puwar</a> demonstrates, physical spaces are gendered, raced and classed.</p>
<p>In <a href="https://www.bloomsburycollections.com/book/space-invaders-race-gender-and-bodies-out-of-place/">Space Invaders: Race, Gender and Bodies Out of Place</a>, Puwar aptly describes the way women and ethnic minorities are perceived as “space invaders” in comparison to white men who are perceived to belong.</p>
<p>Some have called Yarl’s shooting the “wrong door” case. </p>
<p>In my view, that characterization trivializes what happened. </p>
<p>As Yarl’s aunt, Faith Spoonmore, explained, he was “<a href="https://abcnews.go.com/US/ralph-yarl-raises-money-traumatic-brain-injuries-wrong/story?id=99660555">shot in the neighborhood where he lived.”</a> </p>
<p>Kansas City resident Michele L. Watley <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/23/us/kansas-city-shooting-race.html">called her city</a> a place where “this veil of nicety and smiles … overlays microaggressions and all kinds of crazy stuff.”</p>
<p><a href="https://scholars.duke.edu/person/eduardo.bonilla.silva">Sociologist Eduardo Bonilla-Silva </a>notes that <a href="https://s3.amazonaws.com/arena-attachments/530738/694c0f30fe2f5693dae55920a3ed819e.pdf">colorblindness</a> has been “the dominant racial ideology of the post–Civil Rights era.” </p>
<p>That ideology maintains that race no longer matters for people’s life chances.</p>
<p>But as Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson cogently wrote in <a href="https://thehill.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/06/Jackson-dissent.pdf">her dissent</a> in the <a href="https://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/students-for-fair-admissions-inc-v-university-of-north-carolina/">Students for Fair Admissions v. University of North Carolina</a>, “Deeming race irrelevant in law does not make it so in life.”</p>
<p>Just ask the families of A.J. Owens and Ralph Yarl.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/206047/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Barbara Harris Combs does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
A high school honors student, Ralph Yarl rang the wrong doorbell. Claiming fear for his life, the 84-year-old white male homeowner shot him.
Barbara Harris Combs, Professor and Chair Department of Sociology and Criminal Justice, Kennesaw State University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/208748
2023-07-10T03:44:29Z
2023-07-10T03:44:29Z
Ageism, sexism, classism and more: 7 examples of bias in AI-generated images
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536450/original/file-20230710-15-6ofe7i.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=68%2C45%2C3765%2C2109&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>If you’ve been online much recently, chances are you’ve seen some of the fantastical imagery created by text-to-image generators such as Midjourney and DALL-E 2. This includes everything from the <a href="https://twitter.com/snurb_dot_info/status/1637069897854484480?s=20">naturalistic</a> (think a soccer player’s headshot) to the <a href="https://twitter.com/snurb_dot_info/status/1665336634055987200?s=20">surreal</a> (think a dog in space).</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1647976990031454208"}"></div></p>
<p>Creating images using AI generators has never been simpler. At the same time, however, these outputs can reproduce biases and deepen inequalities, as our <a href="https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/21670811.2023.2229883__;!!NVzLfOphnbDXSw!E0CP_7rqJz5wJQ6MlscQdQjDeWVnmQHTahL2IztmxHSJkH7geXp-RIyjgQSTCJ-yOoUXmwW6Sya8YSHXIpmxq2ZOhKPbfsXBcnY$">latest research</a> shows.</p>
<h2>How do AI image generators work?</h2>
<p>AI-based image generators use machine-learning models that take a text input and produce one or more images matching the description. Training these models requires massive datasets with millions of images. </p>
<p>Although Midjourney is opaque about the exact way its algorithms work, most AI image generators use a process called diffusion. Diffusion models work by adding random “noise” to training data, and then learning to recover the data by removing this noise. The model repeats this process until it has an image that matches the prompt.</p>
<p>This is different to the large language models that underpin other AI tools such as ChatGPT. Large language models are trained on unlabelled text data, which they analyse to learn language patterns and produce human-like responses to prompts.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/ai-to-z-all-the-terms-you-need-to-know-to-keep-up-in-the-ai-hype-age-203917">AI to Z: all the terms you need to know to keep up in the AI hype age</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>How does bias happen?</h2>
<p>In generative AI, the input influences the output. If a user specifies they only want to include people of a certain skin tone or gender in their image, the model will take this into account.</p>
<p>Beyond this, however, the model will also have a default tendency to return certain kinds of outputs. This is usually the result of how the underlying algorithm is designed, or a lack of diversity in the training data.</p>
<p>Our study explored how Midjourney visualises seemingly generic terms in the context of specialised media professions (such as “news analyst”, “news commentator” and “fact-checker”) and non-specialised ones (such as “journalist”, “reporter”, “correspondent” and “the press”).</p>
<p>We started analysing the results in August last year. Six months later, to see if anything had changed over time, we generated additional sets of images for the same prompts. </p>
<p>In total we analysed more than 100 AI-generated images over this period. The results were largely consistent over time. Here are seven biases that showed up in our results.</p>
<h2>1 and 2. Ageism and sexism</h2>
<p>For non-specialised job titles, Midjourney returned images of only younger men and women. For specialised roles, both younger and older people were shown – but the older people were always men.</p>
<p>These results implicitly reinforce a number of biases, including the assumption that older people do not (or cannot) work in non-specialised roles, that only older men are suited for specialised work, and that less specialised work is a woman’s domain.</p>
<p>There were also notable differences in how men and women were presented. For example, women were younger and wrinkle-free, while men were “allowed” to have wrinkles. </p>
<p>The AI also appeared to present gender as a binary, rather than show examples of more fluid gender expression.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/534752/original/file-20230629-19-4nlymx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/534752/original/file-20230629-19-4nlymx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534752/original/file-20230629-19-4nlymx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534752/original/file-20230629-19-4nlymx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534752/original/file-20230629-19-4nlymx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534752/original/file-20230629-19-4nlymx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534752/original/file-20230629-19-4nlymx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">AI showed women for inputs including non-specialised job titles such as <em>journalist</em> (right). It also only showed older men (but not older women) for specialised roles such as <em>news analyst</em> (left).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Midjourney</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>3. Racial bias</h2>
<p>All the images returned for terms such as “journalist”, “reporter” or “correspondent” exclusively featured light-skinned people. This trend of assuming whiteness by default is evidence of racial hegemony built into the system.</p>
<p>This may reflect a lack of diversity and representation in the underlying training data – a factor that is in turn influenced by the general lack of <a href="https://www.vox.com/recode/2020/2/18/21121286/algorithms-bias-discrimination-facial-recognition-transparency">workplace diversity</a> in the AI industry.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/534755/original/file-20230629-17-yyrva0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/534755/original/file-20230629-17-yyrva0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534755/original/file-20230629-17-yyrva0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534755/original/file-20230629-17-yyrva0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534755/original/file-20230629-17-yyrva0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534755/original/file-20230629-17-yyrva0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534755/original/file-20230629-17-yyrva0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The AI generated images with exclusively light-skinned people for all the job titles used in the prompts, including <em>news commentator</em> (left) and <em>reporter</em> (right).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Midjourney</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>4 and 5. Classism and conservatism</h2>
<p>All the figures in the images were also “conservative” in their appearance. For instance, none had tattoos, piercings, unconventional hairstyles, or any other attribute that could distinguish them from conservative mainstream depictions.</p>
<p>Many also wore formal clothing such as buttoned shirts and neckties, which are markers of class expectation. Although this attire might be expected for certain roles, such as TV presenters, it’s not necessarily a true reflection of how general reporters or journalists dress.</p>
<h2>6. Urbanism</h2>
<p>Without specifying any location or geographic context, the AI placed all the figures in urban environments with towering skyscrapers and other large city buildings. This is despite only slightly <a href="https://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/urbandevelopment/overview">more than half</a> the world’s population living in cities. </p>
<p>This kind of bias has implications for how we see ourselves, and our degree of connection with other parts of society.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/534758/original/file-20230629-19-wnno82.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/534758/original/file-20230629-19-wnno82.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534758/original/file-20230629-19-wnno82.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534758/original/file-20230629-19-wnno82.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534758/original/file-20230629-19-wnno82.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534758/original/file-20230629-19-wnno82.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534758/original/file-20230629-19-wnno82.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Without specifying a geographic context, and with a location-neutral job title, AI assumed an urban context for the images, including <em>reporter</em> (left) and <em>correspondent</em> (right).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Midjourney</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>7. Anachronism</h2>
<p>Digital technology was underrepresented in the sample. Instead, technologies from a distinctly different era – including typewriters, printing presses and oversized vintage cameras – filled the samples.</p>
<p>Since many professionals look similar these days, the AI seemed to be drawing on more distinct technologies (including historical ones) to make its representations of the roles more explicit.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/534762/original/file-20230629-17-b4yykc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/534762/original/file-20230629-17-b4yykc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534762/original/file-20230629-17-b4yykc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534762/original/file-20230629-17-b4yykc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534762/original/file-20230629-17-b4yykc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534762/original/file-20230629-17-b4yykc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534762/original/file-20230629-17-b4yykc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">AI used anachronistic technology, including vintage cameras, typewriters and printing presses, when depicting certain occupations such as <em>the press</em> (left) and <em>journalist</em> (right).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Images by the authors via Midjourney</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The next time you see AI-generated imagery, ask yourself how representative it is of the broader population and who stands to benefit from the representations within.</p>
<p>Likewise, if you’re generating images yourself, consider potential biases when crafting your prompts. Otherwise you might unintentionally reinforce the same harmful stereotypes society has spent decades trying to unlearn.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/208748/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>T.J. Thomson receives funding from the Australian Research Council through DE230101233, DP210100859, and LP220100208.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ryan J. Thomas does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Regardless of the input, AI image generators will have a tendency to return certain kinds of results. This is where the potential for bias arises.
T.J. Thomson, Senior Lecturer in Visual Communication & Digital Media, RMIT University
Ryan J. Thomas, Associate Professor, Washington State University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/200496
2023-03-31T12:23:01Z
2023-03-31T12:23:01Z
Unconscious biases continue to hold back women in medicine, but research shows how to fight them and get closer to true equity and inclusion
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518544/original/file-20230330-1798-cyxmdb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=1155%2C396%2C4595%2C3190&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Women face much higher levels of discrimination in hiring and promotions compared to male medical professionals.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/female-doctors-discussing-while-walking-in-hospital-royalty-free-image/961012938?phrase=medical%20team%20diverse&adppopup=true">Cavan Images/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>If you work at a company, university or large organization, you’ve probably sat through a required training session meant to fight gender and racial discrimination in the workplace. Employers increasingly invest in efforts to promote diversity, equity and inclusion – commonly referred to as DEI policies. Yet research shows these efforts often <a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/pspa0000160">fail to address the implicit biases</a> that often lead to discrimination.</p>
<p><a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=10vXfYgAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">I am a professor and a physician</a> who has been working in university settings for over 30 years. I also study and speak about discrimination in medicine and science. Like <a href="https://nap.nationalacademies.org/catalog/24994/sexual-harassment-of-women-climate-culture-and-consequences-in-academic">most of my female colleagues</a>, I have personally seen and experienced gender discrimination on many occasions throughout my career.</p>
<p>However, two things seem to have changed in recent years. First, modern training programs are <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36937456/">starting to reflect decades of research</a> on effective interventions. Second, I am noticing a gradual shift with people now more interested in actively addressing discrimination and harassment than ever before. Taken together, these changes give me hope that the medical profession is finally making progress on efforts to fight discrimination.</p>
<h2>Existing policies haven’t worked</h2>
<p>Many institutional policies <a href="https://ss-usa.s3.amazonaws.com/c/308463326/media/27436024f0b84dfd274918375735238/202102%20-%20DEI%20Report.pdf">outline anti-racist and anti-sexist goals</a>, but research shows results have <a href="https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1706255114">been slow in coming</a>.</p>
<p>In a study I conducted to understand what continues to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2021.25843">hold women back in their careers</a>, I interviewed more than 100 men and women in academic medicine, including many in high-powered positions. In my study, dozens of interviewees told me stories of DEI policies that, even with the right intentions, failed to produce good results.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518545/original/file-20230330-26-u00thy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A man sitting at the head of a table." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518545/original/file-20230330-26-u00thy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518545/original/file-20230330-26-u00thy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=430&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518545/original/file-20230330-26-u00thy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=430&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518545/original/file-20230330-26-u00thy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=430&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518545/original/file-20230330-26-u00thy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=541&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518545/original/file-20230330-26-u00thy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=541&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518545/original/file-20230330-26-u00thy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=541&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Research shows that despite policies to promote diversity, equity and inclusion, men still fare better in medical careers.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/businessman-at-conference-table-portrait-royalty-free-image/BA60388?phrase=board%20room&adppopup=true">Darren Robb/The Image Bank via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>For example, frequently search committees are encouraged to broaden and <a href="https://haas.berkeley.edu/wp-content/uploads/EGAL_DEIChecklist.pdf">diversify the pool of candidates</a> for a position. In my study, I found that hiring committees often associate attempts to hire or promote a woman or member of an underrepresented group as “meeting a quota” or “affirmative action,” which the hiring committee sees as an imposition on their ability to choose the best candidates.</p>
<p>A male faculty member I interviewed claimed that a new colleague was hired “because she’s a woman,” even though she was as qualified for the position as other male candidates. Such reactions are part of why this approach, though commonly employed, has not fixed the problem of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1056/nejmsa1916935">women getting fewer promotions than men</a>.</p>
<p>It is also clear that <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31513467/">blatant sexism is still present</a>. For a study I published in 2021, I was told stories of a male department chair putting a dog leash on the desk of a female co-worker, and a female candidate for a leadership position being criticized by the chair of the search committee for <a href="https://doi.org/10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2021.25843">not being “warm and fuzzy”</a>. </p>
<h2>Trainings fail to address implicit bias</h2>
<p>Implicit bias is any unconscious negative attitude a person holds <a href="https://www.apa.org/topics/implicit-bias">against a specific social group</a>. These unconscious biases can affect judgment, decision making and behavior. Implicit bias is often one of the <a href="https://www.statnews.com/2023/01/23/conversations-unconscious-bias-stop-discrimination-in-hiring/">underlying issues</a> that leads to discriminatory practices or harassment that DEI policies are meant to address.</p>
<p>Employee trainings are a staple of organizations’ efforts to meet diversity, equity and inclusion goals. Trainings can take various forms and cover a variety of topics, including implicit bias. These trainings, frequently done online, often “talk at” employees by simply offering information and directives rather than actively engaging them in discussion and analysis. </p>
<p>Trainings that fail to engage participants aren’t very effective in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177%2F15291006211070781">lessening imlicit bias</a>. In fact, research has shown that some trainings suggest unconscious bias is an unchangeable fact of life and imply it <a href="https://hbr.org/2021/09/unconscious-bias-training-that-works">can therefore be ignored</a>.</p>
<h2>Effective ways to mitigate unconscious bias</h2>
<p>Describing how bias works and how it influences individuals is an important step in addressing discrimination. </p>
<p>Researchers have been studying <a href="https://theconversation.com/measuring-the-implicit-biases-we-may-not-even-be-aware-we-have-74912">how unconscious bias works and how to mitigate it</a> since the 1980s. These studies show that unconscious bias is a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2017.04.009">habit that can be broken over time</a> with a clear, consistent and respectful series of evaluations, feedback and follow-ups. During this process, employees become more aware of bias in others, more likely to judge such bias as problematic and more able to mitigate bias in their own behavior. This type of intervention has been shown to produce measurable increases in the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2017.07.002">number of female faculty in science and medicine</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518546/original/file-20230330-1797-8tm80s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A group of people sitting in a semi-circle watching a woman give a presentation." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518546/original/file-20230330-1797-8tm80s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518546/original/file-20230330-1797-8tm80s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518546/original/file-20230330-1797-8tm80s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518546/original/file-20230330-1797-8tm80s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518546/original/file-20230330-1797-8tm80s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518546/original/file-20230330-1797-8tm80s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518546/original/file-20230330-1797-8tm80s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Many diversity, equity and inclusion policies rely on trainings that don’t do a good job of engaging employees.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/businesswoman-explaining-strategy-over-a-flip-chart-royalty-free-image/1166085818?phrase=professional%20training&adppopup=true">Luis Alvarez/Digital Vision via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The question is whether the mandatory trainings and public messaging that are the staples of many DEI policies today can produce similar results to these intensive interventions. </p>
<p>Creating situations or a culture where people can and do share their experiences with harassment and discrimination – without risk of retaliation – can lead to increased awareness of bias in others and clear communication of the negative aspects of this bias.</p>
<p>One interviewee in my study talked about an exercise in which the women wrote down their experiences of discrimination and harassment and then the men read the women’s stories out loud. This woman felt that the men, by reciting the experiences of their female colleagues, finally began to understand how practices that seemed to be inclusive and fair were actively harming others.</p>
<h2>A changing social environment</h2>
<p>Sharing personal experiences of harassment or discrimination with people who have biases is an understandably scary or intimidating thing to do – especially given the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s00268-021-06432-6">history of retaliation or shaming</a>. But my recent experiences seem to suggest that the culture in medicine is shifting from one of avoidance to one of engagement.</p>
<p>I recently gave a talk on gender discrimination at <a href="https://www.cancer.org/research/we-fund-cancer-research/eds-research-programs/jiler-professors-and-fellows-conference/2022-jiler-conference-the-feedback.html">a major cancer conference</a> that brought together researchers from all across the U.S. I shared the results of my study as well as my personal experiences with the audience. At the end of my presentation, the crowd of men and women stood and applauded – a response I have rarely, if ever, seen in my 30 years of attending medical conferences. </p>
<p>This enthusiastic response may suggest that people are broadly becoming more open to and supportive of women and other underrepresented people sharing their own stories of facing discrimination. With a large body of research showing that sharing personal experiences with people who are actively listening and engaging is one of the most effective ways to combat unconscious bias, this standing ovation seemed to me a hopeful sign of things to come.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/200496/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jennifer R. Grandis does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
After decades of effort to reduce discrimination in the workplace, a cultural change may be happening that will enable people to move past their unconscious biases.
Jennifer R. Grandis, Distinguished Professor of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, University of California, San Francisco
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/198721
2023-01-30T19:39:26Z
2023-01-30T19:39:26Z
Black police officers aren’t colorblind – they’re infected by the same anti-Black bias as American society and police in general
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/506931/original/file-20230129-14826-zhltil.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Demonstrators block traffic in Memphis after police released video footage depicting the fatal beating of Tyre Nichols. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/demonstrators-block-traffic-protesting-the-death-of-tyre-news-photo/1460145824?adppopup=true">Scott Olson/Getty Images News via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="https://theconversation.com/los-policias-negros-no-son-neutrales-padecen-los-mismos-prejuicios-antinegros-que-la-sociedad-estadounidense-y-la-policia-en-general-200051">Leer en español.</a></p>
<p><em>Once again, Americans are left reeling from the horror of video footage showing police brutalizing an unarmed Black man who later died.</em></p>
<p><em>Some details in the latest case of extreme police violence were gut-wrenchingly familiar: a police traffic stop of a Black male motorist turned violent. But, for many of us, other details were unfamiliar: The five police officers accused of using everything from pepper spray to a Taser, a police baton and intermittent kicks and punches against the motorist were also Black.</em></p>
<p><em>After pulling over 29-year-old Tyre Nichols for what they said was reckless driving, Black officers in the Memphis Police Department’s <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/28/us/tyre-nichols-protests-saturday/index.html">now disbanded SCORPION unit</a> beat Nichols, ultimately to death.</em></p>
<p><em>The Conversation asked Rashad Shabazz, <a href="https://newsroom.asu.edu/expert/rashad-shabazz">a geographer and scholar of African American studies</a> at Arizona State University, to explore the societal conditions in which Black police officers could brutalize another Black man.</em> </p>
<h2>What could influence Black police officers to savagely beat a Black motorist?</h2>
<p>Policing in the U.S. has, from its inception, treated Black people as domestic enemies. From the <a href="https://www.npr.org/transcripts/869046127">the slave patrols</a>, which some historians consider to be among the nation’s <a href="https://time.com/4779112/police-history-origins/">earliest forms of policing</a>, to the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/31/us/george-floyd-investigation.html">murder of George Floyd</a>, and now the death of Nichols, law enforcement officers often have viewed Black people as what sociologist and civil rights activist W.E.B. Du Bois, in “<a href="https://worldcat.org/en/title/1021060181">The Souls of Black Folk</a>,” called a “problem.” </p>
<p>American society <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/1043986207306870">assumes that Black people are prone to criminality</a> and therefore should be subject to state power in the form of policing or, in some cases, vigilantism – as in the <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/08/08/us/ahmaud-arbery-hate-crime-federal-sentencing/">killing of Ahmaud Arbery</a>. This is a link deeply woven into American consciousness. And <a href="https://spsp.org/news-center/character-context-blog/stereotypical-biases-black-people-toward-black-people">Black people are not immune</a>. In this way, the long-held <a href="https://news.wttw.com/2021/05/06/chicago-police-disproportionately-target-black-men-search-warrants-watchdog">targeting of Black men by police</a> and widely held negative beliefs about them are a powerful cocktail that can compel even Black officers to stop, detain and brutally beat a man who looks just like them.</p>
<h2>Could their actions have been motivated by anti-Black bias?</h2>
<p>It’s hard to investigate the minds of the officers who beat Nichols so savagely and say for sure what motivated them. But <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/live-updates-protests-for-racial-justice/2020/06/22/881643215/police-researcher-officers-have-similar-biases-regardless-of-race">there is ample research</a> that suggests <a href="https://www.bu.edu/antiracism-center/files/2022/06/Anti-Black.pdf">anti-Blackness</a> is a factor in American policing. And Black officers, agents of an <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-racist-roots-of-american-policing-from-slave-patrols-to-traffic-stops-112816">institutionally racist system</a>, are affected by this. <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/12/black-on-black-racism-the-hazards-of-implicit-bias/384028/">Anti-Blackness affects Black people, too</a>. And this might explain why <a href="https://www.openaccessgovernment.org/anti-black-bias/97383/">Black police officers exhibit more anti-Black</a> bias than the Black population as a whole. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/506913/original/file-20230127-13119-morwci.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A woman stands with her eyes closed, her head tilted in the direction of man leaning in to comfort her." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/506913/original/file-20230127-13119-morwci.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/506913/original/file-20230127-13119-morwci.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506913/original/file-20230127-13119-morwci.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506913/original/file-20230127-13119-morwci.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506913/original/file-20230127-13119-morwci.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506913/original/file-20230127-13119-morwci.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506913/original/file-20230127-13119-morwci.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Civil rights attorney Ben Crump comforts RowVaughn Wells, mother of Tyre Nichols, during a press conference hours before the video of police beating Nichols was released.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/civil-rights-attorney-ben-crump-comforts-rowvaughn-wells-news-photo/1460059603?phrase=tyre%20nichols&adppopup=true">Scott Olson /Getty Images News via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>To comprehend this, we have to take a step back and think about race. Stuart Hall, a cultural theorist, described race as a sign. When we look at skin color or <a href="https://www.alanalentin.net/2021/08/06/race-the-floating-signifier/">people as racialized subjects, they signify</a> something to us. Black people, in this society – and <a href="https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/pandemic-border/how-covid-19-exposed-chinas-anti-black-racism/">in other parts of the world</a> – <a href="https://www.vox.com/explainers/2018/8/1/17616528/racial-profiling-police-911-living-while-black">for many signify danger, threat and criminality</a>. And as a result, institutions like the criminal justice system respond to their perceived threat with <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/US/driving-black-abc-news-analysis-traffic-stops-reveals/story?id=72891419">profiling, harassment and violence</a>. </p>
<p>Our surprise that five Black police officers could brutalize another Black man indicates we have an impoverished understanding of race and racism in this country.</p>
<h2>What does Tyre Nichols’ death mean for calls to diversify policing?</h2>
<p>For years, elected officials, activists and citizens have been making calls to reform policing. Many have said bringing more people from ethnically diverse backgrounds onto police forces would go a long way toward correcting institutional racism in the criminal justice system. </p>
<p>The final report of “<a href="https://www.ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-library/abstracts/final-report-presidents-task-force-21st-century-policing">The President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing</a>,” commissioned through an executive order by President Barack Obama, called for law enforcement agencies to “strive to create a workforce that encompasses a broad range of diversity, including race, gender, language, life experience, and cultural background to improve understanding and effectiveness.” </p>
<p>One recent study concluded that <a href="http://doi.org/10.1126/science.abd8694">Black and Hispanic police officers make fewer traffic stops</a> and use force less often than their white counterparts. But, at the same time, Black and brown police officers live in the same culture that sees Black people as criminals and threats. So simply having more officers of color <a href="https://www.usnews.com/news/cities/articles/2020-02-05/is-hiring-more-black-officers-the-key-to-reducing-police-violence">doesn’t do enough to fix the problem</a>.</p>
<h2>How does seeing video of another Black man brutalized by police, this time Black officers, affect Black people?</h2>
<p>Over the past decade, videos of Black people killed at the hands of police officers have filled social media and news sites. I, for one, cannot watch them because <a href="https://theconversation.com/pain-of-police-killings-ripples-outward-to-traumatize-black-people-and-communities-across-us-159624">they terrify me and amplify fears</a> for my safety and that of my family and friends. I watched about 30 seconds of the Black police officers pummeling Nichols and couldn’t take any more. I know I’m not alone. Studies tell us that police killings of unarmed Black people <a href="https://www.bu.edu/bulawreview/files/2020/05/09-HERD.pdf">are psychologically traumatizing events</a> for Black people. This kind of horror should be traumatizing to the nation. But if Black is the sign of danger and criminality, who will have empathy for the Tyre Nicholses of the world?</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/506898/original/file-20230127-16-3eb2id.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="At night, three people wearing coats stand before a sign that is leaning against a tree and lit by candles. It reads, 'Justice for Tyre.'" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/506898/original/file-20230127-16-3eb2id.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/506898/original/file-20230127-16-3eb2id.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506898/original/file-20230127-16-3eb2id.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506898/original/file-20230127-16-3eb2id.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506898/original/file-20230127-16-3eb2id.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506898/original/file-20230127-16-3eb2id.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506898/original/file-20230127-16-3eb2id.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">People honor the memory of Tyre Nichols during a candlelight vigil held in his honor.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/people-attend-a-candlelight-vigil-in-memory-of-tyre-nichols-news-photo/1459866296?phrase=tyre%20nichols&adppopup=true">Scott Olson/Getty Images News via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><em>This article was updated to cut out repetition in the introduction.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/198721/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rashad Shabazz does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Black police officers can have bias against Black people – and act on it.
Rashad Shabazz, Associate Professor at the School of Social Transformation, Arizona State University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/198711
2023-01-28T00:14:16Z
2023-01-28T00:14:16Z
‘Acts that defy humanity:’ 3 essential reads on police brutality, race and the power of video evidence
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/506900/original/file-20230127-10847-1b0tbb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=447%2C320%2C5182%2C3426&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">People attend a candlelight vigil in memory of Tyre Nichols in Memphis, Tenn., on Jan. 26, 2023.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/people-attend-a-candlelight-vigil-in-memory-of-tyre-nichols-news-photo/1459866539?phrase=tyre%20nichols&adppopup=true">Scott Olson/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In the case of the five Black, former Memphis police officers accused of murder in the beating death of Tyre Nichols, justice has moved quickly. </p>
<p>In fewer than 30 days after Nichols’ Jan. 10, 2023 death, the <a href="https://www.reuters.com/legal/former-memphis-police-officer-indicted-tyre-nichols-death-cnn-reports-2023-01-26/">former officers were charged</a> with second-degree murder, assault, kidnapping, official misconduct and official oppression. </p>
<p>The Memphis Police Department released video footage of the officers’ encounter with Nichols on Jan. 27, 2023. And some who’ve seen the video, which includes footage captured by body-worn cameras, cameras mounted on dashboards of police vehicles and security cameras on utility poles in the vicinity, have <a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/mother-of-tyre-nichols-calls-for-peaceful-protests-when-horrific-video-is-released/ar-AA16OGVm">described it as “horrific.”</a></p>
<p>Before the video was released <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/27/us/tyre-nichols-memphis-friday/index.html">Memphis Police Chief Cerelyn Davis told CNN</a>: “You are going to see acts that defy humanity.”</p>
<p>In recent years, as national outrage over the systemic racism within U.S. law enforcement has grown, The Conversation U.S. has published several articles on police brutality, race and the national outrage over systemic racism within the U.S. criminal justice system. </p>
<h2>1. Different interpretations of video evidence</h2>
<p>Media Studies Professor <a href="https://www.colorado.edu/cmci/people/media-studies/sandra-ristovska">Sandra Ristovska</a> examines the use of video as evidence in state and federal courts in the U.S. and <a href="https://theconversation.com/from-rodney-king-to-george-floyd-how-video-evidence-can-be-differently-interpreted-in-courts-159794">writes</a> about the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9JiIdsjfjo">Rodney King</a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Fpivi5ljhI">George Floyd</a> cases where jurors interpreted video evidence differently. </p>
<p>In the King case, the four Los Angeles police officers were acquitted of charges of assault and excessive use of force as the jury believed the video showed a justified response to King’s allegedly frightening actions.</p>
<p>Lead prosecutor Terry White ended his closing arguments by asking the jury: “Now who do you believe, the defendants or your own eyes?”</p>
<p>In the Floyd case, jurors believed their own eyes and convicted Derek Chauvin for the murder of Floyd.</p>
<p>As Ristovska explains, bystander, bodycam and dashcam videos of policing can be powerful forms of evidence.</p>
<p>“Yet judges, attorneys and jurors may see and treat video in varied ways that can lead to inconsistent renderings of justice,” she writes.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/from-rodney-king-to-george-floyd-how-video-evidence-can-be-differently-interpreted-in-courts-159794">From Rodney King to George Floyd, how video evidence can be differently interpreted in courts</a>
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</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>2. The racist roots of policing</h2>
<p>As historian <a href="https://www.deakin.edu.au/about-deakin/people/clare-corbould">Clare Corbould</a> explains, police violence that disproportionately targets African Americans long predates portable video cameras. </p>
<p>Where Black Africans were once enslaved to provide cheap labor, Corbould writes, they are now policed, charged, indicted and incarcerated at staggering rates.</p>
<p>“As many have noted since [George] Floyd’s murder, the origins of U.S. policing lie in the control of supposedly disorderly populations,” <a href="https://theconversation.com/relief-at-derek-chauvin-conviction-a-sign-of-long-history-of-police-brutality-159212">Corbould writes</a>, “whether of enslaved people or, after the end of slavery, an impoverished class of laborers including Black people and immigrants.”</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/relief-at-derek-chauvin-conviction-a-sign-of-long-history-of-police-brutality-159212">Relief at Derek Chauvin conviction a sign of long history of police brutality</a>
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</p>
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<h2>3. College requirements for police may reduce fatal encounters</h2>
<p>In their peer-reviewed study of data on 235 U.S. city police departments from 2000 to 2016, <a href="https://aysps.gsu.edu/profile/thaddeus-johnson/">Thaddeus L. Johnson</a> and <a href="https://aysps.gsu.edu/profile/natasha-johnson/">Natasha N. Johnson</a> found that police forces requiring at least a two-year college degree for employment are less likely to employ officers who engage in actions that cause the deaths of Black and unarmed citizens. </p>
<p>As <a href="https://theconversation.com/college-requirements-for-police-forces-can-save-black-lives-but-at-what-cost-187251">they explain</a>, “Our results demonstrated that college minimums are associated with as much as three times lower rates of police-related fatalities involving Black people than police forces without a college degree requirement.”</p>
<p>Their findings further suggest that the impact of a more educated police force may emerge during only the most dangerous encounters that often precede the use of weapons.</p>
<p>More research needs to be done but they conclude that police agencies trying to reduce fatal confrontations should consider ways to recruit college-degreed applicants while at the same time support college attendance among current officers.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/college-requirements-for-police-forces-can-save-black-lives-but-at-what-cost-187251">College requirements for police forces can save Black lives, but at what cost?</a>
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</p>
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<p><em>Editor’s note: This story is a roundup of articles from The Conversation’s archives.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/198711/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
The death of a Black motorist after a beating by five Black Memphis police officers has triggered national outrage over police brutality and systemic racism with the U.S. criminal justice system.
Howard Manly, Race + Equity Editor, The Conversation US
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/190814
2022-12-08T13:33:02Z
2022-12-08T13:33:02Z
White teachers often talk about Black students in racially coded ways
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/492368/original/file-20221028-13-t8n33a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=7%2C68%2C5084%2C3427&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Educators stereotype Black students in subtle ways.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/fourth-grade-girls-on-computers-royalty-free-image/608899871?phrase=black%20students%20classroom&adppopup=true">Jonathan Kirn via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>When a white Texas middle school teacher <a href="https://www.kxan.com/news/local/pflugerville/pflugerville-teacher-who-made-inappropriate-comments-no-longer-employed-by-district/">told his students</a> in November 2022 that he was “ethnocentric” and thought his race was “superior,” he attempted to explain his position by arguing that he was hardly the only person who held such a view.</p>
<p>“Let me finish …” the teacher is seen telling his students on a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxMM-WwrNWs">now-viral video</a> as they began to push back against his remarks. “I think everybody thinks that; they’re just not honest about it.”</p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/uxMM-WwrNWs?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Texas teacher tells his students he is racist.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The teacher in question has <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/white-teacher-at-bohls-middle-school-in-pflugerville-benched-over-viral-rant-on-superior-race">since been fired</a>. His termination is hardly surprising given that he was captured on video making blatantly racist remarks in a public school classroom. But as we discovered while performing a study at a predominantly Black school with mostly white teachers, many of them – whether consciously or unconsciously – often harbor negative racial views and stereotypes about Black students and their families. The key difference is they <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/00420859221119115">verbalize those negative views in less obvious ways</a> than the Texas teacher.</p>
<p>At the school we studied, the negative views were not isolated occurrences, but rather a part of a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/00420859221119115">culture of coded racial stereotypes</a>, which we argue encourages the disciplining of Black students at disproportionately higher rates.</p>
<p>Our findings were published in a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/00420859221119115">peer-reviewed study</a> that appeared in Urban Education in 2022. They are based on a study that began in 2015 when administrators at a predominantly Black high school asked our research team for help understanding why the predominantly white teaching staff was struggling to form positive relationships with the students. In the first part of our partnership with the school, we found that while Black students made up 89% of the student body, they represented 97% of all disciplinary infractions. Conversely, while white students made up 8% of the student population, they received only 1% of the disciplinary referrals. This early quantitative finding confirms studies from across the nation that showed that, even when controlling for rates of misbehavior and poverty, <a href="https://doi.org/10.3102/0002831214541670">Black students are still disproportionately</a> disciplined compared to their white peers.</p>
<p>We are education researchers who specialize in <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=PkC_OxQAAAAJ&hl=en">cultural</a> and <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/scientific-contributions/Olivia-Marcucci-2156367933">racial justice</a> issues. We believe our findings shine light on how often educators hold racial biases against the students they’ve been entrusted to teach.</p>
<h2>Stereotyping was prevalent</h2>
<p>The racial biases came to light as we conducted focus groups with teachers and students to ask them about their school’s culture and experiences with classroom discipline.</p>
<p>Of the teachers who participated in the focus groups, 84% were white. During focus group discussions, 36 out of 38 teachers voiced a stereotype at least once, though some did so up to 10 times. While some teachers pushed back against stereotypes they heard, and even more often acknowledged systemic racism in the lives of their students, the teachers still frequently used stereotypes when discussing their students and families.</p>
<p>In a series of focus groups, we asked educators from the school to reflect on their experiences in the school, interacting with students, and their thoughts on the school discipline practices. We were particularly interested in hearing their thoughts on the types of infractions for which students were disciplined and how specific punishments were decided on. For example, why were some students who disrupted class sent back from the office to the classroom immediately, but others received 10 days of in-school suspension? </p>
<p>The majority of the focus group questions were not focused on race explicitly. Even so, we still noticed an undercurrent of racially coded stereotypes as the teachers reflected on the statistical trends in school discipline and on their school culture as a whole. </p>
<p>For example, in one focus group, a white teacher notes that when the then-vice principal, a Black man, went to the school as a student, “we had a much more diverse student body. So, he had an opportunity to see different types of behavior. And I think a lot of these kids that we have, the chronic misbehaviors, they don’t have that option. They’re in a class, class by class where they’re all very similar socioeconomic background, and that really makes a difference, I think. Their parents are working and are unable to monitor them. Maybe they didn’t have such a successful high school experience, so they don’t have the tools that some of the other kids – we still have a few of them, fortunate to have a number in my classes.”</p>
<p>The teacher directly connects the presence of “chronic misbehaviors” with a change in the school’s demographics. The teacher opines that in the past, when the student body was nearly equally Black and white, that Black individuals, such as the then-vice principal, in his example, could observe better behavior in school. The teacher therefore communicates an anti-Black stereotype in a coded way, implying that Black students needed white students to “see different types of behavior.”</p>
<p>In a different example, two white teachers began talking about how parents at their school didn’t care about their children. At one point, they pretended to be parents, with one of the teachers even making a joke that one of the parents completely forgot they even had a child: </p>
<p>Teacher 1: Yeah, just somebody saying, ‘Hey, you know you have a baby, right?’
Teacher 2: I do?
Teacher 1: Yeah.
Teacher 2: Oh.
Teacher 1: Oh, wooord.</p>
<p>Nothing about this interaction is racially explicit. But the teacher’s joke invokes a stereotype of Black parents as disengaged from their children’s lives by using a stereotypical African American vernacular – “wooord.” When white teachers at a predominantly Black school make statements like these, they are upholding the stereotype that Black parents lack concern for their children – even if that is not the teachers’ intention.</p>
<h2>A way of bonding</h2>
<p>Using <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691123899/interaction-ritual-chains">a theory</a> that measures the speed of bonding, we found that when teachers used anti-Black stereotypes, they often bonded with each other more quickly and effectively. Certain types of communication — often ones that happen nonverbally — can <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691123899/interaction-ritual-chains">help individuals bond with each other</a>. These bonds then make individuals feel better about themselves and their community. In the data, teachers often used nonverbal communication or noises like “uh-huh,” laughter, and conversational rhythm, while stereotyping their students. </p>
<p>For example, in the “Hey, you know you have a baby, right?” joke, both teachers laughed as a result of the joke. Just as importantly, the rest of the teachers in the room also laughed. Laughter is an important display of bonding. In other interactions, teachers used verbalizations like “mhmmm” or “This is it” to support each other as they engaged in stereotyping their students.</p>
<h2>Reform through reflection</h2>
<p>Based on what <a href="https://www.guilford.com/books/Dual-Process-Theories-of-the-Social-Mind/Sherman-Gawronski-Trope/9781462514397/contents">social psychologist Russell Fazio</a> has found, if teachers are given time to reflect on their potential biases, they have a better chance of removing those biases from their teaching. Through <a href="https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED521618">systematic and sustained professional learning</a>, teachers can become <a href="https://doi.org/10.1186/s40359-019-0299-7">aware of their implicit and explicit biases and how those biases may impact their behavior</a>. This type of professional learning must be coupled with structural reforms to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/17508487.2019.1579743">re-professionalize teaching</a> to achieve lasting, anti-biasing results. </p>
<p>Since our study was completed, the educators, school and district have sought to revamp their disciplinary policies and school culture, including deep discussions about how their biases might affect how they discipline students. The school has begun to use <a href="https://www.wested.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/resource-restorative-justice-in-u-s-schools-an-updated-research-review.pdf">restorative justice practices</a>, an alternative approach to discipline that focuses on humanizing individuals and repairing harm after a wrong occurs. The school hired a full-time staff person to support restorative justice. According to the current principal, in the year following, suspensions dropped by 47% in one year and chronic absenteeism dropped by 7%.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/190814/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>ROWHEA ELMESKY received an internal university grant which helped fund this study. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Olivia Marcucci does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Though difficult to pinpoint, white educators often put forth stereotypes when they discuss Black students among themselves, new research has found.
Rowhea Elmesky, Associate Professor of Education, Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis
Olivia Marcucci, Assistant Professor of Education, Johns Hopkins University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/193614
2022-11-16T13:28:19Z
2022-11-16T13:28:19Z
Antisemitism isn’t just ‘Jew-hatred’ – it’s anti-Jewish racism
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/494289/original/file-20221108-20-huj8bo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=4%2C0%2C2904%2C1569&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">It's one thing to agree to combat antisemitism. It's another thing to agree on what it means.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/dictionary-word-royalty-free-image/484799412?phrase=antisemitism&adppopup=true">goglik83/iStock via Getty Images Plus</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Antisemitism has been <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/04/us/kanye-antisemitism-midterms.html">in the news a lot lately</a>. Hip-hop megastar Ye – formerly known as Kanye West – tweeted Oct. 8, 2022 that he would “go death con 3 On JEWISH PEOPLE,” and then made <a href="https://www.adl.org/resources/blog/ye-kanye-west-what-you-need-know">antisemitic comments</a> during a series of interviews. Basketball star Kyrie Irving <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/brooklyn-nets-denounce-kyrie-irving-promoting-antisemitic-film-2022-10">has been embroiled in scandal</a> after promoting a film that accuses Jews of controlling the trans-Atlantic slave trade and worshiping the devil. And former U.S. President Donald Trump <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/10/16/trump-jews-israel/">posted on his social media platform</a> that Jews must “get their act together” and show more appreciation for Israel “before it is too late” – a suggestion <a href="https://twitter.com/USJewishDems/status/1581663750591238145">some read as a veiled threat</a>.</p>
<p>While Ye and Irving’s actions were <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/oct/24/los-angeles-leaders-condemn-kanye-wests-antisemitic-comments">widely condemned</a>, Trump’s received <a href="https://www.jta.org/2022/10/24/politics/aipac-jewish-gop-leaders-silent-on-trumps-warning-to-u-s-jews-to-get-their-act-together-on-israel">much less rebuke</a>. Partisan politics, especially in the run-up to the midterm elections, are likely one reason why Trump has not been ostracized like Ye and Irving. But it’s also because many people, including some <a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/ben-shapiro/ben-shapiro-defends-donald-trumps-social-media-post-threatening-american-jews-says-it">prominent conservative Jews</a>, do not see anything antisemitic in Trump’s words. </p>
<p>Accusations of antisemitism often seem like a kind of <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-18952667">Rorschach test</a>. Where some people see antisemitism, others see a legitimate opinion or statement. Arguments ensue, and even more accusations fly.</p>
<p>As <a href="https://www.international.ucla.edu/israel/person/2520">a political scientist</a> studying contemporary antisemitism and the current arguments about it, I believe this pattern stems from fundamental misunderstandings about <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/01419870.2021.1960407">what antisemitism is and how it works</a>. People often think that antisemitism just means hating Jews. But this is too simplistic. It is more useful to think of antisemitism as a <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14616696.2012.676447">kind of racism</a>. There are different varieties of racism, each with their own history and distinctive characteristics. </p>
<h2>Anti-Jewish racism</h2>
<p>Just as much of American society has come to recognize that anti-Black racism is <a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/amp0000642">more than a matter of personal prejudice</a>, this is true of antisemitism as well. Antisemitism is “anti-Jewish racism,” and, like anti-Black racism, it can operate in multiple ways. It can involve overt hostility, or covert bias. It can be intentional or unintentional. It can be expressed in stereotypes, in coded language, and in conspiracy theories.</p>
<p>Hating Jews, or having other kinds of negative feelings toward them, is certainly one form of antisemitism. But antisemitism can also be an <a href="https://theconversation.com/measuring-the-implicit-biases-we-may-not-even-be-aware-we-have-74912">unconscious bias</a>, a form of “implicit racism.” </p>
<p>Probably the most common form of antisemitism consists of negative stereotypes about Jews, such as the idea that they are <a href="https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/usury-and-moneylending-in-judaism/">rich, greedy</a>, scheming or more loyal to other Jews or to Israel <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/03/ilhan-omar-and-ugly-history-dual-loyal-trope/584185/">than to the countries in which they live</a>. These stereotypes are embedded in many cultures, and they can be unconsciously internalized. People can therefore express antisemitic stereotypes without knowing their racist origins, or harboring hostility toward Jews.</p>
<p>Many people have excused <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/10/17/trump-history-antisemitic-tropes/">the numerous times</a> Trump has trafficked in Jewish stereotypes on the grounds that his daughter, son-in-law and grandchildren are Jewish, and that he was <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/21/world/middleeast/netanyahu-trump-israel-gifts.html">avowedly pro-Israel when he was president</a>. This is sufficient proof <a href="https://forward.com/fast-forward/521660/netanyahu-defends-trump-hes-not-antisemitic-he-has-jewish-family/">for some people that he cannot be antisemitic</a>.</p>
<p>But having Jewish friends or family members, or even being Jewish oneself, does not give you immunity from having antisemitic beliefs or ideas any more than having Black friends or being a Black person gives you immunity from anti-Black racism – <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-43970903">just look at Ye</a>, who has said, for example, that 400 years of slavery seems like “a choice” by African Americans.</p>
<h2>The trope that doesn’t die</h2>
<p>Like other kinds of racism, antisemitism can also be expressed obliquely, in a “coded” manner: when Jews or “the Jews” are not named, but antisemitic tropes are invoked.</p>
<p>For example, people disagree over whether it is antisemitic to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2022/feb/03/tucker-carlson-film-antisemitic-attack-against-george-soros">vilify the billionaire liberal philanthropist George Soros</a>, who is Jewish, as Republican politicians and Fox TV hosts regularly do.</p>
<p>Not all criticism of Soros is antisemitic, but accusing him of masterminding all sorts of national or international events draws on the old antisemitic trope that <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/11/2/15946556/antisemitism-enlightenment-george-soros-conspiracy-theory-globalist">wealthy Jews are puppet-masters</a>, secretly pulling the strings of governments, media and banks around the world to serve their own nefarious ends.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Someone holds up a poster that says 'SOS Stop Operation Soros #1 Public Enemy'" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/494338/original/file-20221109-14-m45kk3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/494338/original/file-20221109-14-m45kk3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/494338/original/file-20221109-14-m45kk3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/494338/original/file-20221109-14-m45kk3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/494338/original/file-20221109-14-m45kk3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/494338/original/file-20221109-14-m45kk3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/494338/original/file-20221109-14-m45kk3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A banner against George Soros held up as right-wing demonstrators clash with Black Lives Matter and Antifa counter-demonstrators, in Portland, Ore., in 2020.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/banner-of-george-soros-a-favorite-whipping-boy-of-the-news-photo/1228170246?phrase=soros&adppopup=true">John Rudoff/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The most enduring and perhaps most distinctive feature of antisemitism is the central role it often plays in conspiracy theories. Take the so-called <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2022/05/17/racist-great-replacement-conspiracy-theory-explained">great replacement theory</a> and the related idea of “<a href="https://bridge.georgetown.edu/research/factsheet-great-replacement-white-genocide-conspiracy-theory/">white genocide</a>,” which falsely claim that Jews are covertly trying to replace white, Christian populations in white-majority countries with people of color and non-Christians. </p>
<p>These <a href="https://politicalresearch.org/2017/06/29/skin-in-the-game-how-antisemitism-animates-white-nationalism">conspiracy theories drive much of white nationalism</a>, and are why white supremacists and neo-Nazis marching in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017 <a href="https://theconversation.com/conspiracies-about-a-catastrophic-takeover-by-jews-have-long-been-an-american-problem-172033">chanted</a> “Jews will not replace us!” The perpetrators of some of the worst racist violence in the United States in recent years, such as the mass shootings <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/05/25/buffalo-race-war-invasion-violence/">in Buffalo</a>, <a href="https://www.elpasotimes.com/story/news/2022/08/04/el-paso-walmart-shooting-patrick-crusius-gop-rhetoric-invasion/7585100001/">El Paso</a>, and <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/why-the-tree-of-life-shooter-was-fixated-on-the-hebrew-immigrant-aid-society">Pittsburgh</a> were all motivated by these antisemitic ideas.</p>
<h2>Changing the conversation</h2>
<p>Recognizing that antisemitism can take different forms – not just hostility toward Jews – will not automatically resolve disagreements about what is or isn’t antisemitic, particularly when they concern <a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2021/03/anti-semitism-better-definition-ihra.html">criticisms of Israel</a>. But it can help the conversation by focusing on whether what someone said or did was antisemitic, rather than focusing on their intentions or feelings.</p>
<p>It can also refocus the conversation on explaining why something is antisemitic, rather than just denouncing it. Most people do not know the long history of <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/Documents/AboutUs/CivilSociety/ReportHC/75_The_Louis_D._Brandeis_Center__Fact_Sheet_Anti-Semitism.pdf">malicious myths and conspiracy theories</a> about Jews that have circulated for centuries. Nearly half of Americans told pollsters they <a href="https://www.ajc.org/AntisemitismReport2020/Survey-of-the-General-Public">do not even know what the word antisemitism means</a>. </p>
<p>Countering antisemitism, therefore, requires more than “calling it out” – it requires educating people about antisemitism. As the number of reported antisemitic incidents in the United States <a href="https://www.adl.org/audit2021">surges to record levels</a>, there is an urgent need to do so.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/193614/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dov Waxman does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Combatting antisemitism isn’t just about ‘calling it out’ – it’s about helping people understand what antisemitism is in the first place.
Dov Waxman, Rosalinde and Arthur Gilbert Foundation Professor of Israel Studies, University of California, Los Angeles
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/193060
2022-11-16T13:27:38Z
2022-11-16T13:27:38Z
Math teachers in virtual classes tend to view girls and Black students as less capable
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/494491/original/file-20221109-16841-a4qjc0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=31%2C125%2C6970%2C4387&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Black boys are more likely than white students to be identified as potentially in need of special education.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/growing-his-mind-royalty-free-image/1159785349?phrase=remote%20learning%20kids&adppopup=true">Hiraman via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>The <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/topics/research-brief-83231">Research Brief</a> is a short take about interesting academic work.</em></p>
<h2>The big idea</h2>
<p>In virtual classrooms, math teachers deem Black students as less capable than white students. They also view girls as less capable than boys. That’s what we found after we <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2022.104627">conducted an experiment</a> with 1,000 teachers in schools throughout the United States. </p>
<p>For our experiment, we had teachers evaluate student answers to various math problems. Those answers were accompanied by images of different students online. We asked them to tell us how correct the students’ answers were. We also asked them to tell us how capable they thought the student was and how likely they would be to refer the student to be tested for a special education program to get extra help, or a gifted program, which would enable them to do more advanced work. We randomly changed the images of students presenting their solutions in Zoom classes to show Black and white girls and boys. However, the solutions stayed the same. </p>
<p>We found that teachers more often thought the student needed to be tested for special education when they saw a screenshot of a Black student explaining their answer rather than a white student. The teachers more often thought the student was gifted if the screenshot showed a boy rather than a girl. </p>
<p>Furthermore, our study showed that when teachers work in schools that serve higher concentrations of Black students, they often assumed that Black students had less math ability than white students. They also considered them more in need of instructional support. But in schools with virtually no Black students, teachers were more likely to say that white boys should be tested for a gifted and talented program than white girls. </p>
<h2>Why it matters</h2>
<p>Our experiment suggests teachers are identifying Black students as potentially having disabilities more often than white students who produced the same answers to math problems. Further, girls are not being given equal chances to be placed in gifted programs even when they give answers identical to those given by boys.</p>
<p>As virtual instruction is expected to become <a href="https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA956-1.html">more commonplace</a> than before the pandemic, our study warns that virtual classrooms may perpetuate the <a href="https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189X19890577">same biases</a> that exist in traditional school settings. </p>
<h2>What other research is being done</h2>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189X16644606">Researchers</a> are still trying to understand whether the overrepresentation of minority students in special education is the result of systematic racial bias.</p>
<p>As we found in this study and in <a href="https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189X19890577">our prior work</a>, teachers assumed boys had a higher ability than girls when both gave answers that were not fully correct. Such blind trust in boys’ math ability can boost their confidence and may <a href="https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aba7377">embolden them to pursue math-intensive fields at a higher rate</a> than girls, who are not seen by teachers as having as high a math ability.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/193060/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Yasemin Copur-Gencturk receives funding from the Joan Herman and Richard Rasiej Mathematics Initiative. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Joseph Cimpian receives funding from the Institute of Education Sciences and the National Science Foundation. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ian Thacker does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Researchers found that students are being judged by their race and gender, not how well they do math.
Yasemin Copur-Gencturk, Associate Professor of Education, University of Southern California
Ian Thacker, Assistant Professor of Educational Psychology, The University of Texas at San Antonio
Joseph Cimpian, Professor of Economics and Education Policy, New York University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/182738
2022-06-12T12:11:27Z
2022-06-12T12:11:27Z
‘Y’all are coming at this like we’re racists’: How ‘Survivor’ highlights the pulse of socialization
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/468049/original/file-20220609-24-sslflq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=18%2C0%2C4071%2C2918&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">In Season 42, Episode 9 Drea Wheeler pointed out that Black players get voted off before white players which opened up a discussion about race. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(SurvivorCBS/Twitter)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>While <a href="https://horizon.westmont.edu/6065/oped/in-defense-of-garbage-why-reality-tv-is-a-positive-form-of-escapism/">reality television may be escapism</a>, <em>Survivor</em> highlights the pulse of socialization. </p>
<p>Since its premiere in 2000, <em>Survivor</em> has been a <a href="https://www.psychologyinaction.org/psychology-in-action-1/2015/01/05/outwit-outplay-outlast-the-psychology-of-survivor">social experiment</a> providing a window into the lives of how people live with each other amid social and physical challenges.</p>
<p>Players, however, are not disavowed from their lives outside of the game — who they are does not change. They’re not only battling each other for immunity, but players are also grappling with the ways in which social constructions of identity bleed into the game, like race.</p>
<p>If you look back at <em>Survivor</em> winners there is some <a href="https://www.globaltv.com/shows/survivor/articles/survivor-winners-list/">racial diversity</a>, however patterns remain and have often been pointed out by cast members. In Season 42, Episode 9, <a href="https://www.cbs.com/shows/survivor/cast/216609/">Drea Wheeler</a> pointed out that Black players get voted off before white players which opened up a discussion about race. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-does-critical-race-theory-make-people-so-uncomfortable-176125">Why does critical race theory make people so uncomfortable?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>In 1989, critical race theorist Kimberlé Crenshaw gave a name to the experiences of injustice Black women are confronted with as they were often left out of policies meant to move justice forward for racialized people: <a href="https://www.cjr.org/language_corner/intersectionality.php">intersectionality</a>. The term addressed the ways in which Black women were oppressed by the dual identity of being a woman and being Black. </p>
<p>Since then, intersectionality has been expanded to other groups of people because it is “<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/in-theory/wp/2015/09/24/why-intersectionality-cant-wait/">a way of thinking about identity and its relationship to power</a>.” And when we think differently about relations of power, those who hold power begin to feel threatened as their power has been normalized <a href="https://www.britannica.com/science/socialization">through our engagement with socialization</a> and the ways institutions and systems reproduce power. This is systemic racism.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/akOe5-UsQ2o?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Kimberlé Crenshaw explaining the urgency of intersectionality.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Also playing into this notion is <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/article/what-is-critical-race-theory.html">critical race theory (CRT)</a> — another term Crenshaw helped coin — which recognizes that racism is embedded within our systems and institutions which are reproducing barriers to equity and inclusion.</p>
<p>Before children are born, they are socialized into gender stereotypes through gender reveal parties (really <a href="https://www.salon.com/2017/07/04/its-a-boy-its-a-girl-its-not-a-gender-reveal-party/">sex reveal parties</a>), and moved through society that tells them who gets killed first in <a href="https://time.com/3547214/horror-films-who-dies-first/">horror movies</a>, the role of Black people in <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/black-character-history-video-games/">video games</a>, who can play professional <a href="https://www.theplayerstribune.com/articles/hockey-is-not-for-everyone-akim-aliu-nhl">men’s ice hockey</a> and who gets voted off <em>Survivor</em>.</p>
<h2>Implicit bias and racism</h2>
<p>On an episode of <em>Survivor</em> during a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8wQudHM77Q">tribal council</a>, a discussion about race emerged and a white male player, <a href="https://www.cbs.com/shows/survivor/cast/216613/">Jonathan Young</a>, responded to the dialogue saying: “I don’t feel this is right, because y’all are coming at this like we’re racists.” In doing this, he showcased the ways in which <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/06/16/how-fluid-is-racial-identity/race-and-racial-identity-are-social-constructs">socialization constructs racial identities</a>. </p>
<p>The role of <a href="https://nccc.georgetown.edu/bias/module-3/1.php">unconscious or implicit bias</a> was implicated when Drea openly shared her frustration about her experience as a Black woman playing <em>Survivor</em> when she noticed two other Black players were voted off from a different tribe. </p>
<p>She called out the pattern of who gets voted off <em>Survivor</em>. This opened the conversation about what it means to be Black on the show: she has to <a href="https://youtu.be/bcBxPTirDak">question her identity</a> and the impact race has on the game at every moment whereas someone like Jonathan does not.</p>
<p>Jonathan pushed back stating: “that’s saying I’m subconsciously racist. And that’s not true.” This steered the conversation away from the trend Drea pointed out towards <a href="https://libjournal.uncg.edu/ijcp/article/viewFile/249/116">Jonathan’s discomfort with the conversation about bias</a>. </p>
<p>This implied connection between implicit bias and racism result in more <a href="https://thefederalist.com/2022/05/03/no-survivor-not-everyone-is-subconsciously-racist/">accusations that CRT is hurting</a> white people and this is absolutely not the case.</p>
<p>The conversation between Drea, Maryanne Oketch and Jonathan was not referring to Jonathan or the other tribal members as racist, but calling out the ways in which socialization leads people to believe stereotypes about certain people and how patterns continue to be reproduced. </p>
<p>By not having these open discussions, what is left is fear mongering and misunderstandings of CRT. Jonathan may or may not be a racist, but unfortunately that is where the conversation was focused — on white people having to become aware of how whiteness permeates our media and causes harm to Drea, Maryanne and other racialized people. </p>
<p>This conversation shouldn’t have centred white people. It should have played out by the white cast members being willing take a step back and listen to Drea and Maryanne. The conversation shouldn’t have been about white people feeling uncomfortable but centred on identifying the patterns of racism which feed how we are <a href="https://theconversation.com/colourism-how-shade-bias-perpetuates-prejudice-against-people-with-dark-skin-97149">socialized into a hierarchy of skin colour</a>. </p>
<p>This is not a drastic approach or a political agenda, but a call to open up spaces for conversations about racism, about whiteness, about race with white people <em><a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-empowerment-diary/201708/deep-listening-in-personal-relationships">listening</a></em>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/182738/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Teresa Anne Fowler does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
This is not a drastic approach or a political agenda, but a call to open up spaces for conversations about racism, about whiteness, about race with white people listening and not centring themselves.
Teresa Anne Fowler, Assistant Professor, Education, Concordia University of Edmonton
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/169493
2021-10-08T12:27:11Z
2021-10-08T12:27:11Z
None of the 2021 science Nobel laureates are women – here’s why men still dominate STEM award winning
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/425281/original/file-20211007-18946-pf7buf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=1223%2C321%2C7020%2C5166&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Frances Arnold received the 2018 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://nobelprize.qbank.se/mb/?h=7f34a741c65f2309fcc548afd9fd944e&_ga=2.87363736.1458753097.1633524725-438278705.1633524725">© Nobel Media. Photo: Alexander Mahmoud</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>All of the 2021 Nobel Prizes in science were awarded to men. </p>
<p>That’s a return to business as usual after a couple of good years for female laureates. In 2020, <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/chemistry/2020/charpentier/facts/">Emmanuelle Charpentier</a> and <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/chemistry/2020/doudna/facts/">Jennifer Doudna</a> won the chemistry prize for their work on the CRISPR gene editing system, and <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/2020/ghez/facts/">Andrea Ghez</a> shared in the physics prize for her discovery of a supermassive black hole.</p>
<p>2019 was another year of all male laureates, after <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/chemistry/2018/arnold/facts/">biochemical engineer Frances Arnold</a> won in 2018 for chemistry and Donna Strickland received the <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/2018/strickland/facts/">2018 Nobel Prize in physics</a>. </p>
<p>Strickland and Ghez were only the third and fourth female physicists to get a Nobel, following <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/1903/marie-curie/facts/">Marie Curie in 1903</a> and <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/1963/mayer/facts/">Maria Goeppert-Mayer 60 years later</a>. When asked how that felt, Strickland noted that at first it was surprising to realize so few women had won the award: “But, I mean, I do live in a world of mostly men, so seeing mostly men <a href="https://www.npr.org/2018/10/02/653779921/donna-strickland-becomes-first-woman-in-more-than-50-years-to-win-physics-nobel-">doesn’t really ever surprise me either</a>.”</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.pri.org/stories/2019-10-09/only-20-nobels-sciences-have-gone-women-why">rarity of female Nobel laureates</a> raises questions about women’s exclusion from education and careers in science and the <a href="https://thebestschools.org/magazine/brilliant-woman-greedy-men/">undervaluing of women’s contributions on science teams</a>. Women researchers have come a long way over the past century, but there’s overwhelming evidence that women remain underrepresented in the STEM fields of science, technology, engineering and math.</p>
<p>Studies have shown that those women who persist in these careers face explicit and implicit barriers to advancement. Bias is most intense in fields that are dominated by men, where women lack a critical mass of representation and are often viewed as tokens or outsiders. This bias is even more intense for transgender women and nonbinary individuals.</p>
<p>As things are getting better in terms of equal representation, what still holds women back in the lab, in leadership and as award winners?</p>
<h2>Good news at the start of the pipeline</h2>
<p>Traditional stereotypes hold that women “don’t like math” and “aren’t good at science.” Both <a href="https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2014/03/both-genders-think-women-are-bad-basic-math">men and women report these viewpoints</a>, but researchers have <a href="https://www.apa.org/action/resources/research-in-action/share.aspx">empirically disputed them</a>. Studies show that girls and women avoid STEM education not because of cognitive inability, but because of early exposure and experience with STEM, educational policy, cultural context, stereotypes and a lack of exposure to role models. </p>
<p>For the past several decades, efforts to improve the representation of women in STEM fields have focused on countering these stereotypes with <a href="http://www.apsbridgeprogram.org/igen/">educational reforms</a> and <a href="https://girlswhocode.com/">individual</a> <a href="https://www.nsf.gov/funding/pgm_summ.jsp?pims_id=5383">programs</a> that can increase the number of girls entering and staying in what’s been called the STEM pipeline – the path from K-12 to college and postgraduate training.</p>
<p><iframe id="qE27X" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/qE27X/2/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>These approaches are working. Women are increasingly likely to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1615/JWomenMinorScienEng.2012002908">express an interest in STEM careers and pursue STEM majors</a> in college. Women now make up half or more of workers in psychology and social sciences and are increasingly represented in the scientific workforce, though computer and mathematical sciences are an exception. </p>
<p>According to the American Institute of Physics, women earn about 20% of bachelor’s degrees and 18% of Ph.D.s in physics, <a href="https://www.aip.org/taxonomy/term/155">an increase from 1975</a> when women earned 10% of bachelor’s degrees and 5% of Ph.D.s in physics.</p>
<p>More women are graduating with STEM Ph.D.s and earning faculty positions. But they encounter glass cliffs and ceilings as they advance through their academic careers.</p>
<h2>What’s not working for women</h2>
<p>Women face a number of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.so.21.080195.000401">structural and institutional barriers</a> in academic STEM careers.</p>
<p>In addition to issues related to the gender pay gap, the structure of academic science often makes it difficult for women to <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/9781135943974">get ahead in the workplace</a> and to balance work and life commitments. Bench science can require years of dedicated time in a laboratory. The strictures of the tenure-track process can make maintaining work-life balance, responding to family obligations and <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-todays-long-stem-postdoc-positions-are-effectively-anti-mother-51550">having children</a> or taking family leave difficult, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0306312711417730">if not impossible</a>.</p>
<p>Additionally, working in male-dominated workplaces can <a href="https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.so.21.080195.000401">leave women feeling isolated</a>, <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/2777808">perceived as tokens</a> and susceptible to <a href="https://www.nap.edu/catalog/24994/sexual-harassment-of-women-climate-culture-and-consequences-in-academic">harassment</a>. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1010344929577">Women often are excluded</a> from networking opportunities and social events, left to feel they’re outside the culture of the lab, the academic department and the field.</p>
<p>When women lack a critical mass in a workplace – making up about 15% or more of workers – they are <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/2884712">less empowered to advocate for themselves</a> and more likely to be perceived as <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1749-6632.1999.tb08353.x">a minority group and an exception</a>. When in this minority position, women are more likely to be pressured to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s11162-017-9454-2">take on extra service</a> as tokens on committees or <a href="https://www.chronicle.com/article/Ghost-Advising/242729">mentors to female graduate students</a>.</p>
<p>With fewer female colleagues, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0162243917735900">women are less likely</a> to build relationships with female collaborators and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-010-0256-y">support and advice networks</a>. This isolation can be exacerbated when women are unable to participate in work events or <a href="https://www.insidehighered.com/advice/2018/02/07/conferences-should-be-more-family-friendly-women-scholars-children-opinion">attend conferences because of family or child care</a> responsibilities, and because of an inability to use research funds to reimburse child care.</p>
<p>Universities, <a href="https://journals.lww.com/academicmedicine/Fulltext/2002/10000/Increasing_Women_s_Leadership_in_Academic.23.aspx">professional associations</a> and federal funders have <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/hrm.20225">worked to address a variety</a> of these structural barriers. Efforts include creating family-friendly policies, increasing transparency in salary reporting, enforcing Title IX protections, providing mentoring and support programs for women scientists, protecting research time for women scientists and targeting women for hiring, research support and advancement. These programs have had mixed results. </p>
<p>For example, research indicates that family-friendly policies such as leave and onsite child care <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/scipol/scu006">can exacerbate gender inequity</a>, resulting in increased research productivity for men and increased teaching and service obligations for women.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/239534/original/file-20181005-72103-13n5zz2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/239534/original/file-20181005-72103-13n5zz2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/239534/original/file-20181005-72103-13n5zz2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/239534/original/file-20181005-72103-13n5zz2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/239534/original/file-20181005-72103-13n5zz2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/239534/original/file-20181005-72103-13n5zz2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/239534/original/file-20181005-72103-13n5zz2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/239534/original/file-20181005-72103-13n5zz2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">People haven’t really updated their mental images of what a scientist looks like since Wilhelm Roentgen won the first physics Nobel in 1901.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://wellcomecollection.org/works/sftaf5z8">Wellcome Collection</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Implicit biases about who does science</h2>
<p>All of us – the general public, the media, university employees, students and professors – have <a href="https://theconversation.com/most-people-think-man-when-they-think-scientist-how-can-we-kill-the-stereotype-42393">ideas of what a scientist</a> and a Nobel Prize winner look like. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/cdev.13039">That image</a> is <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1949-8594.2002.tb18217.x">predominantly male, white and older</a> – which makes sense given 96% of the science Nobel Prize winners have been men.</p>
<p>This is an example of an <a href="https://www.pbs.org/video/pov-implicit-bias-peanut-butter-jelly-and-racism/">implicit bias</a>: one of the unconscious, involuntary, natural, unavoidable assumptions that all of us – men and women – form about the world. People make decisions <a href="https://theconversation.com/measuring-the-implicit-biases-we-may-not-even-be-aware-we-have-74912">based on subconscious assumptions, preferences and stereotypes</a> – sometimes even when they are counter to their explicitly held beliefs.</p>
<p>Research shows that an implicit bias against women <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-a-scientist-looks-like/">as experts and academic scientists</a> is pervasive. It manifests itself by valuing, acknowledging and rewarding men’s scholarship over women’s scholarship. </p>
<p>Implicit bias can work against women’s hiring, advancement and recognition of their work. For instance, women seeking academic jobs are more likely to be viewed and judged based on <a href="https://www.aeaweb.org/conference/2018/preliminary/paper/nZ24K7b2">personal information and physical appearance</a>. Letters of recommendation for women are <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s10869-018-9541-1">more likely to raise doubts</a> and use language that results in negative career outcomes.</p>
<p>Implicit bias can affect women’s ability to publish research findings and gain recognition for that work. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/2378023117738903">Men cite their own papers 56% more</a> than women do. Known as the “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0306312711435830">Matilda Effect</a>,” there is a gender gap in recognition, award-winning and <a href="https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2018/08/16/new-research-shows-extent-gender-gap-citations">citations</a>. </p>
<p>Women’s research is less likely to be cited by others, and their <a href="https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/R7AQT1">ideas are more likely to be attributed to men</a>. Women’s solo-authored research takes <a href="https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2017/04/20/study-finds-women-economics-write-papers-are-more-readable-face-longer-publication">twice as long</a> to move through the review process. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-018-06678-6">Women are underrepresented</a> in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/puar.12950">journal editorships</a>, as senior scholars and lead authors, and as peer reviewers. This marginalization in research gatekeeping positions works against the promotion of women’s research.</p>
<p>When a woman becomes a world-class scientist, implicit bias works <a href="https://doi.org/10.1128/JVI.00739-17">against the likelihood</a> that she will be <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/12/women-are-invited-to-give-fewer-talks-than-men-at-top-us-universities/548657/">invited as a keynote or guest speaker</a> to share her research findings, thus <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/jeb.12198">lowering both her visibility in the field</a> and the likelihood that she will be <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0306312711435830">nominated for awards</a>. This gender imbalance is <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/S1049096517000580">notable in how infrequently</a> <a href="https://www.thestar.com/opinion/public_editor/2017/11/17/we-need-more-womens-voices-in-the-news.html">women experts</a> are <a href="https://www.poynter.org/news/lack-female-sources-ny-times-front-page-stories-highlights-need-change">quoted in news stories</a> on most topics.</p>
<p>Women scientists are afforded less of the respect and recognition that should come with their accomplishments. Research shows that when people talk about male scientists and experts, they’re more likely to use their surnames and more likely to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1805284115">refer to women by their first names</a>. </p>
<p>Why does this matter? Because experiments show that individuals referred to by their surnames are more likely to be viewed as famous and eminent. In fact, one study found that calling scientists by their last names led people to consider them 14% more deserving of a National Science Foundation career award.</p>
<p>Seeing men as prize winners has been the history of science, but it’s not all bad news. Recent research finds that in the biomedical sciences, women are making significant gains in winning more awards, though on average these awards are typically <a href="https://hbr.org/2019/02/research-women-are-winning-more-scientific-prizes-but-men-still-win-the-most-prestigious-ones">less prestigious and have lower monetary value</a>.</p>
<p>Addressing structural and implicit bias in STEM will hopefully prevent another half-century wait before the next woman is acknowledged with a Nobel Prize for her contribution to physics. I look forward to the day when a woman receiving the most prestigious award in science is newsworthy only for her science and not her gender.</p>
<p><em>This is an updated version of <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-more-women-dont-win-science-nobels-104370">an article originally published</a> on Oct. 5, 2018.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/169493/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mary K. Feeney is Program Director for the National Science Foundation's Science of Science: Discovery, Communication, and Impact (SoS:DCI) program.</span></em></p>
Science fields are improving at being more inclusive. But explicit and implicit barriers still hold women back from advancing in the same numbers as men to the upper reaches of STEM academia.
Mary K. Feeney, Professor and Lincoln Professor of Ethics in Public Affairs, Arizona State University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/164905
2021-08-16T12:07:58Z
2021-08-16T12:07:58Z
250 preschool kids get suspended or expelled each day - 5 questions answered
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/415047/original/file-20210806-23-c4l7i7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Pre-K students are more likely to be expelled than any K-12 grade.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/boy-standing-with-arms-crossed-royalty-free-image/760156213">Heather Walker/RooM Collection via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>When parents think of a child getting kicked out of school, they might imagine drugs found stashed in a locker, a classroom that’s been vandalized, or some kind of sexual or other violent assault. But the fact is that it’s not uncommon for students to be suspended or expelled for much less egregious behavior before they even enter kindergarten. </p>
<p>In 2014, the U.S. Departments of Health and Human Services and Education <a href="https://www.acf.hhs.gov/ecd/child-health-development/reducing-suspension-and-expulsion-practices">provided recommendations to states</a> to <a href="https://www.irp.wisc.edu/resource/working-framework-for-research-informed-legislation-prohibiting-preschool-expulsion-suspension/">severely limit and ultimately eliminate</a> early childhood suspensions and expulsions. </p>
<p>Some states, such as <a href="https://www.coloradoshines.com/families?p=Preventing-Suspensions-and-Expulsions">Colorado</a> and <a href="https://www.louisianabelieves.com/docs/default-source/child-care-providers/early-childhood-resource-guide-for-preventing-expulsion-suspension.pdf?sfvrsn=77f26718_2">Louisiana</a>, denounce suspension and expulsion in their administrative guides and reimbursement policies for early childcare programs. <a href="https://childandfamilysuccess.asu.edu/cep/start-with-equity">Other states</a>, including <a href="https://www.ilga.gov/legislation/publicacts/fulltext.asp?Name=100-0105">Illinois</a> and <a href="https://casetext.com/regulation/arkansas-administrative-code/agency-005-department-of-education/division-24-early-childhood/rule-0052406-001-rules-governing-the-arkansas-better-chance-program">Arkansas</a>, have enacted policies aimed at ending expulsion, at least in certain types of programs such as public school-based pre-K.</p>
<p><a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=GzihGmoAAAAJ&hl=en">Early childhood development expert</a> Kate Zinsser is a <a href="https://psch.uic.edu/profiles/zinsser-katherine/">psychology professor</a> at the University of Illinois at Chicago and author of the forthcoming book “No Longer Welcome: The Epidemic of Expulsion from Early Childhood Education,” due out in Spring 2022.</p>
<p>Here she answers five questions about preschool expulsions.</p>
<h2>1. How common is it?</h2>
<p>Nationwide, about <a href="https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/early-childhood/news/2017/11/06/442280/new-data-reveal-250-preschoolers-suspended-expelled-every-day/">250 children</a> are suspended or expelled from preschool each day. Excluded children miss out on critical early learning opportunities that help them be socially, emotionally and academically ready for kindergarten. </p>
<p>As worrisome as these figures are, they are likely underestimated. They don’t account for the myriad ways that children are informally expelled or pushed out of programs. They also do not include counts from all facets of the early childhood system, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/imhj.21845">such as home-based child care</a>, where expulsion <a href="https://indigo.uic.edu/articles/report/Evaluation_Report_of_the_Implementation_of_Illinois_Public_Act_100-0105_Early_childhood_programs_knowledge_of_and_responses_to_the_2018_expulsion_legislation/14522400">can be more common</a>.</p>
<h2>2. What do preschoolers get expelled for?</h2>
<p>Children who are expelled tend to be labeled as “too aggressive” or “too disruptive.” From my interviews with teachers, parents and administrators over the past decade, I’ve heard stories of children expelled for developmentally normal behaviors, like crying too much. But I’ve also heard distressing accounts of children throwing furniture at teachers and injuring themselves or other children. </p>
<p>Working with children with challenging behaviors can be emotionally and physically exhausting. But it’s important to remember that behavior is a form of communication, especially in early childhood. While many children will <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0271121415626130">grow out of these behaviors</a>, a minority of children who struggle to manage their emotions and behavior may need <a href="https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ775044">additional support from caring adults or specialists</a> to learn to communicate appropriately.</p>
<p>At the same time, research has routinely demonstrated how things like <a href="https://doi.org/10.1097/00001163-200607000-00007">large class sizes</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.appdev.2017.11.006">high stress levels</a> can lead some teachers to expel more children. </p>
<p>Furthermore, preschool is not immune to what psychologist and race relations expert Beverly Daniel Tatum refers to as our country’s <a href="https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=9I7ExPk-920C&oi=fnd&pg=PA124&ots=raUA4m1DxN&sig=CjXywvvavKUzNRaXkMfZP1Flr0g#v=onepage&q&f=false">“smog” of racism</a>. Just as in <a href="https://doi.org/10.3102/0034654318791582">older grades</a>, teachers’ implicit biases lead them to interpret Black children’s behavior as <a href="https://medicine.yale.edu/childstudy/zigler/publications/Preschool%20Implicit%20Bias%20Policy%20Brief_final_9_26_276766_5379_v1.pdf">more dangerous or difficult</a>. This may explain why Black children make up <a href="https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/db517f89380c40b59276d651badc97a3">more than half</a> of preschoolers expelled, even though they represent less than 20% of enrollment.</p>
<h2>3. What can other states learn from Illinois’ ban?</h2>
<p>I’m working with policymakers, advocates and early childhood administrators to evaluate the implementation and impact of the Illinois expulsion ban. Through surveys and interviews with program administrators, my students and I found that during the 2017-2018 school year, when the law went into effect, expulsion rates were high. In that year <a href="https://5df823c9-87db-4bc2-b25c-56b55c98e749.filesusr.com/ugd/1a138e_e8153ce6e9664181b871166f97777a2f.pdf">nearly 13 out of every 1,000 children</a> enrolled were formally expelled. </p>
<p>As we’ve continued to collect annual data, that number has come down precipitously, but despite the ban on paper, expulsions still happen. In 2019-2020, just over <a href="https://5df823c9-87db-4bc2-b25c-56b55c98e749.filesusr.com/ugd/1a138e_7429c8db0a8a41799479d074499655bd.pdf?index=true">three out of every 1,000 children</a> enrolled were formally expelled. </p>
<p>At the same time, we found twice as many children being informally pushed out as were formally expelled. Also, discipline was applied disproportionately against boys and Black children. While 43% of students attending participating programs were boys, they made up 75% of those expelled. Likewise, Black children were less than 17% of total enrollment but more than 33% of those expelled.</p>
<h2>4. What do I do if my child is expelled?</h2>
<p>If your child’s teacher is expressing concerns about their behavior, meet with them. Be open-minded and try to work together to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/chso.12228">understand why your child is struggling</a> in the classroom. Children are <a href="https://doi.org/10.3102/0002831219838236">less likely to be expelled</a> if the teacher and the parent have a <a href="https://www.doi.org/10.1002/pits.22440">positive and collaborative relationship</a>.</p>
<p>If a program formally expels your child or if you’re feeling pressured to withdraw them, contact your <a href="https://www.childcareaware.org/resources/ccrr-search-form/">local child care agency</a> and learn about your rights and the laws in your state. </p>
<h2>5. What should I do if another child is biting or hurting my child?</h2>
<p>It can be frightening for parents to think that another child is hurting their child. As a mom of two little kids, I know firsthand how tricky the situation can be to navigate. As a developmental psychologist, I know that pushing, hitting and biting are <a href="https://challengingbehavior.cbcs.usf.edu/docs/backpack/BackpackConnection_behavior_biting.pdf">developmentally normal</a> ways for young children to react in social settings, especially if they’re feeling overwhelmed or anxious. As a parent who cares about equity, I want to protect my child without also blaming or ostracizing a child who clearly needs caring adults to work with them to communicate their needs more appropriately. </p>
<p>Your child’s teachers are likely very aware of the situation and working with the child and their family. You can support their efforts by communicating your concerns and recognizing how hard they are working to find a solution. Ask what they plan to do to prevent future incidents and talk with your child about the experience. How did they feel? Why do they think their classmate acted the way they did? What can they say or do if it happens again?</p>
<p>[<em>Over 100,000 readers rely on The Conversation’s newsletter to understand the world.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=100Ksignup">Sign up today</a>.]</p>
<p>Parents could also offer to help the preschool identify resources such as local specialists or consultants, or classroom resources like the <a href="https://www.elizabethverdick.com/blog/series/best-behavior/">Best Behavior picture-book series</a> by Elizabeth Verdick or the <a href="https://consciousdiscipline.com/">Conscious Discipline curriculum</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/164905/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kate Zinsser receives funding from the U.S. Department of Education, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the Foundation for Child Development, the Chicago Merchantile Exchange, the Collaborative for Academic, Social & Emotional Learning, and The Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues. She is affiliated with the University of Illinois at Chicago and serves on the Illinois Association of Infant Mental Health board. </span></em></p>
An early childhood development expert explains why so many preschoolers are kicked out of child care, and what to do if it happens to your child.
Kate Zinsser, Professor of Psychology, University of Illinois Chicago
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/162887
2021-07-06T15:54:07Z
2021-07-06T15:54:07Z
Implicit bias within Canadian media often means providing excuses for white accused
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/407718/original/file-20210622-15-1vml92t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=29%2C0%2C3964%2C2245&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Structural racism in media is deeply embedded, and resolving it will require frank discussions.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Canada celebrates itself as a multicultural and inclusive nation, yet when it comes to media representation, the different portrayals of Muslims and white people disguise a culture of <a href="https://perception.org/research/implicit-bias/">implicit bias</a> and racism.</p>
<p>Take, for example, two high profile crimes in which vehicles were used to kill people.</p>
<p>On Dec. 31, 2020, <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/calgary-police-andrew-harnett-1.5859221">a police officer in Calgary was killed when struck by a vehicle trying to flee a traffic stop</a>. On June 6, <a href="https://theconversation.com/muslim-family-killed-in-terror-attack-in-london-ontario-islamophobic-violence-surfaces-once-again-in-canada-162400">four members of a Muslim-Canadian family in were killed</a> when they were out for an evening stroll in London, Ont.</p>
<p>In the Calgary incident, those arrested and charged with first-degree murder were two Muslim teenagers. The suspect in the London attack is a 20-year-old white man.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/a-child-psychiatrist-who-knew-those-killed-in-the-london-terror-attack-offers-advice-on-helping-kids-deal-with-trauma-162761">A child psychiatrist who knew those killed in the London terror attack offers advice on helping kids deal with trauma</a>
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<p>Canadian news outlets captured these two crimes in very different ways.</p>
<p>In the incident about the killing of the Muslim family members, some news outlets illustrated a story about the accused by using a photo of him <a href="https://nypost.com/2021/06/09/suspect-in-attack-on-muslim-family-laughed-during-arrest-report/">from a recent fishing trip</a>. </p>
<p>While the Crown would add a charge of terrorism <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-terrorism-charge-filed-in-the-london-attack-is-the-first-of-its-kind-in-canada-162739">in addition to the murder charges</a>, news outlets became a channel for the accused’s family and friends to <a href="https://news.yahoo.com/christian-terrorist-mowed-down-muslim-180540029.html">send out their positive thoughts about him, praise him and deny his Islamophobia and racism</a>. </p>
<p>Friends spoke about a recent fishing trip and how the accused was “<a href="https://lfpress.com/news/local-news/who-is-nathaniel-veltman-accused-in-alleged-london-hate-killings">happy as ever</a>,” how he had “trouble with the steering of his truck” and was distraught over a death in the family.</p>
<p>Eventually, news outlets cited the accused’s <a href="https://www.iheartradio.ca/610cktb/news/court-documents-portray-london-attack-suspect-as-prone-to-anger-medicated-for-mental-illness-1.15391880">mental illness, anger management and parent’s separation</a>.</p>
<p>In the Calgary incident, no friends or family of the accused were quoted by the media. No one spoke of their character or offered any other personal information about them. Photos used in media stories were <a href="https://calgary.ctvnews.ca/alberta-s-top-court-reserves-decision-on-bail-for-suspect-in-hit-and-run-death-of-calgary-officer-1.5480543">police mug shots</a>. </p>
<h2>Delegating responsibility</h2>
<p>Research has shown that in cases of mass killings where the accused is white, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0022427818787225">the media often cite mental illnesses as a possible explanation for the crime</a>.</p>
<p>The media’s delegation of responsibility of the crime to mental illness reduces moral panic. It provides peace of mind for readers that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0022427818787225">“normal” white people would not commit such crimes</a>. </p>
<p>At the same time, the sympathetic image of a mentally ill individual becomes an asset for the defence <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0093854818794742">during the trial and sentencing</a>. </p>
<p>Nancy Heitzeg, a professor of sociology and critical studies of race and ethnicity at Saint Catherine University in Minnesota, notes there is a “<a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/10282580.2015.1025630">double standard</a>” when it comes to the white people versus people of colour when they commit the same crime.</p>
<p>When a white individual is committing a crime, she explains, there is always a life story that gives characteristics to the accused. However, when a minority individual is committing the crime, there are no backgrounds, no excuses and no side stories. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/muslim-family-killed-in-terror-attack-in-london-ontario-islamophobic-violence-surfaces-once-again-in-canada-162400">Muslim family killed in terror attack in London, Ontario: Islamophobic violence surfaces once again in Canada</a>
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<p>Journalists are influenced by their own perceptions of race when creating content. They are <a href="https://sophia.stkate.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1478&context=msw_papers">embedded within societies that are impacted by racial tensions and misperceptions</a>. This can translate into stories that reinforce stereotyping.</p>
<p>While news outlets should be a neutral source of information, research has indicated that <a href="https://www.crrf-fcrr.ca/en/resources/research-projects/item/23532-racist-discourse-in-canadas-english-print-media-en-gb-1">Canadian media shows implicit biases and racism</a>. In particular, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/1748895813476874">articles describe crimes against white victims with significantly more fearful language</a>.</p>
<p>Implicit bias is often in the details left out. <a href="https://www.unlv.edu/news/article/unpacking-how-media-influences-our-views-racism">Structural racism in media is deeply embedded</a>, and resolving it will require frank discussions, diverse workforces and a confrontation of racism’s roots.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/162887/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Shila Khayambashi does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Existing racism and implicit bias in Canadian media downplayed the terrorist attack by a white accused while exaggerating and staying silent on the reasons behind a hit-and-run by Muslim teens.
Shila Khayambashi, Ph.D. Candidate, Communications and Culture, York University, Canada
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/161874
2021-06-14T21:37:29Z
2021-06-14T21:37:29Z
Bias is natural: How you manage it defines your ability to be just
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/406191/original/file-20210614-128076-13r9glm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=99%2C140%2C5425%2C3114&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">By acknowledging our biases we can find ways to mitigate their impact on our decision making.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>People tend to think having biases is a bad thing. From the <a href="https://theconversation.com/coronavirus-and-cognitive-bias-the-surprising-reasons-people-cheat-at-social-distancing-137987">COVID-19 pandemic</a>, to education and the <a href="https://theconversation.com/starbucks-and-the-impact-of-implicit-bias-training-96491">workplace</a>, tackling and mitigating bias is very much a topic of conversation.</p>
<p>But, if we want to create a <a href="https://qspace.library.queensu.ca/handle/1974/26032">more just society</a> we need to first understand biases as natural products of our environment. </p>
<p>We develop biases and perspectives as reactions to experiences that prepare us for evaluating information that we will encounter in the future.</p>
<p>We <a href="https://perception.org/research/implicit-bias/">all have biases to some degree</a>, <a href="https://journals.lww.com/jcehp/Citation/2021/04120/Reimagining_Bias__Making_Strange_With_Disclosure.10.aspx">whether we care to admit this or not</a>. Our biases remain innocuous until our assumptions impact our behaviours toward other people. By acknowledging our biases we can find ways to mitigate their impact on our decision making. </p>
<p>Our perceptions of bias and our perspectives fundamentally affect how we interact with our environments. Take myself for example, I’m a motivation and education researcher in the Faculty of Education and Faculty of Health Sciences at Queen’s University. I tend to be moved by evidence that explains and explores <em>why</em> someone did or should do something. That’s why the motives behind bias are <a href="https://qspace.library.queensu.ca/handle/1974/27642?show=full">fascinating to me</a>. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/measuring-the-implicit-biases-we-may-not-even-be-aware-we-have-74912">Measuring the implicit biases we may not even be aware we have</a>
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<h2>Motivation and biases</h2>
<p>Our biases are consciously and unconsciously shaped by what motivates us. The motives behind our actions shape how we see the world and everything in it. With this understanding it is <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/02601370120490">impossible to be impartial</a> on <a href="https://doi.org/10.3102%2F0013189X07309471">many issues</a>.</p>
<p>I’ll use a motivation theory called <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-08-097086-8.26099-6">Expectancy-Value-Cost (EVC)</a> to explain this. Our motivations for anything can be sorted into three overarching groups of factors: expectancies (expectations of success), values and costs.</p>
<p>Expectancies are a combination of self-concept (how I see myself) and self-efficacy (I believe myself to be capable of this task). For example, does a person believe they are impartial and capable of being impartial on a particular issue.</p>
<p>Values are the reasons why we do something (it would be fun, fulfils my identity, or I expect a reward for doing this). Someone who aspires to be even-handed or identifies as being just and fair would naturally be more willing to consider the possibility that their view might be skewed by a past experience or what they have perceived. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/406251/original/file-20210614-130619-1f9994q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="An illustration showing silhouettes of different people." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/406251/original/file-20210614-130619-1f9994q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/406251/original/file-20210614-130619-1f9994q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=300&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/406251/original/file-20210614-130619-1f9994q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=300&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/406251/original/file-20210614-130619-1f9994q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=300&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/406251/original/file-20210614-130619-1f9994q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/406251/original/file-20210614-130619-1f9994q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/406251/original/file-20210614-130619-1f9994q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Our perceptions of bias and our perspectives fundamentally affect how we interact with our environments.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Confronting biases also has perceived costs. Costs are the inherent and holistic price of doing something (extra effort, pressure, discomfort). Consider how uncomfortable it can sometimes be to challenge our assumptions and admit that we might have been less than fair, intentionally or unintentionally.</p>
<p>When we act on biases we are driven by factors like these. Although they vary from person to person, these three factors paint a generally applicable picture.</p>
<h2>Mitigating bias</h2>
<p>The best you can hope for is to be aware of how you are biased and mitigate its impact. Our perspective on something as simple as a <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/sports/hockey/nhl/mark-scheifele-winnipeg-jets-montreal-canadiens-1.6053544">hockey hit</a> or as complex as thoughts <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan/first-person-robert-doucette-more-than-a-dark-period-1.6053849">that spur discussion of histories that could demand a shift in worldview</a>, are influenced by our past experiences.</p>
<p>By stigmatizing bias, we treat it as something to evade, avoid and conceal instead of something we must discuss. This makes <a href="https://doi.org/10.1097/acm.0000000000003700">unmitigated biases</a> — <em>the ones that we convince ourselves that we do not have</em> — a source of division and shame that impedes our progress.</p>
<p>By not addressing unmitigated biases, we are setting people up to avoid difficult conversations and to live as if some folks’ experiences don’t exist or that perspectives other than their own are not valid. This lets biases fester into something that makes injustices more likely.</p>
<p>Where this becomes a threat to justice is when we believe we see things <a href="https://qspace.library.queensu.ca/handle/1974/26032">more clearly than others</a>. Instead, we should ask ourselves why we are seeing things the way we do and consider what could be informing our bias.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/406200/original/file-20210614-125916-1ko2oqw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A woman and man argue sitting on a couch." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/406200/original/file-20210614-125916-1ko2oqw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/406200/original/file-20210614-125916-1ko2oqw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/406200/original/file-20210614-125916-1ko2oqw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/406200/original/file-20210614-125916-1ko2oqw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/406200/original/file-20210614-125916-1ko2oqw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/406200/original/file-20210614-125916-1ko2oqw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/406200/original/file-20210614-125916-1ko2oqw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Acknowledging bias allows us to make amends, make better decisions and eventually change for the better.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>I’ll go first. I love Canada, the nation that accepted my parents’ families as refugees who were seeking a better life and willing to work hard for it. But if I allow my love for Canada to make me blind or numb to <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/books/seven-fallen-feathers-1.4232642">horrific historic injustices</a> that have happened in this country, then I am contributing to a status quo that <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/firsthand/m_episodes/the-skin-were-in">actively harms</a> others.</p>
<p>By acknowledging our biases, we make it possible to do something about them, be aware of them and control how they affect us. Acknowledging bias allows us to make amends, make better decisions and eventually change.</p>
<p>Understanding the motivations and broader implications of having biases means we can better contain their negative influence and advance justice in our society. </p>
<p>What we need is a bias literacy of sorts. When we stop challenging our biases and those of others, critical conversations stop happening. Biases are natural products of our experiences, but the ability and willingness to disclose and challenge our biases are acquired through putting in the hard work.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/161874/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Eleftherios Soleas received funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada as well as the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada, Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care.</span></em></p>
The motives and biases behind our actions shape how we see the world and everything in it. Understanding our biases means we can contain their negative influence and advance justice in our society.
Eleftherios Soleas, Adjunct assistant professor, Education, Queen's University, Ontario
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/150077
2020-12-07T13:12:13Z
2020-12-07T13:12:13Z
Racism at the county level associated with increased COVID-19 cases and deaths
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/372101/original/file-20201130-19-kgp9ss.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C3171%2C2126&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Sevonna Brown of Black Women's Blueprint, a mutual aid group, with her son in Brooklyn, New York. Mutual aid groups have been formed across New York City to address the economic plight caused by COVID-19. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/sevonna-brown-of-black-womens-blueprint-a-mutual-aid-group-news-photo/1212730608?adppopup=true">Stephanie Keith via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The COVID-19 pandemic has affected all people, but not necessarily in the same way.</p>
<p>Scientists have shown that racial and ethnic minorities are more likely than white people to <a href="https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2020.305764">catch</a>, <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6927a3.htm?s_cid=mm6927a3_w">be hospitalized</a> because of and <a href="https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2020.305764">ultimately die</a> from the virus. </p>
<p>In explaining these findings, <a href="https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2020.305766">researchers often point</a> to patterns within society that advantage white people over racial and ethnic minorities. </p>
<p>These patterns reflect systemic racism or institutional racism. As Mary Frances O'Dowd, an Australian researcher in Indigenous Studies <a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-is-systemic-racism-and-institutional-racism-131152">explains</a>, these refer “to how ideas of white superiority are captured in everyday thinking at a systems level: taking in the big picture of how society operates, rather than looking at one-on-one interactions.”</p>
<p>As researchers who study <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=xU8P9K4AAAAJ&hl=en">diversity</a> and <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=1fTTA-0AAAAJ&hl=en">health</a>, we put this idea <a href="https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0242044">to the test</a>. Specifically, we tested whether different forms of racism at the county level were linked to COVID-19 cases and deaths. The answer is yes, racism predicts COVID-19 outcomes, even after taking into account a host of other health and demographic factors. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1334264177775534085"}"></div></p>
<h2>Racism at the county level</h2>
<p>We focused on two kinds of racial attitudes. The first, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.82.3.359">explicit</a>, represents those attitudes that people intentionally maintain. Here, people express negative attitudes toward a group, or toward people they think belong to that group. An example came in Minnesota, where health workers offering free COVID-19 testing were called <a href="https://www.tampabay.com/news/health/2020/09/25/racial-slurs-threats-halt-covid-19-study-in-minnesota/">various racial epithets</a>. </p>
<p>We also examined <a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/a0035028">implicit racial attitudes</a>. These are the automatic, unintentional responses people have. Though they take a different form, implicit racial attitudes can and do affect <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1751-9004.2009.00183.x">people’s behaviors</a>. A health-related example comes when people make an automatic assumption that “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/15/us/black-doctor-says-delta-flight-attendant-brushed-her-aside-in-search-of-an-actual-physician.html?module=inline">actual physicians or nurses</a>” are white.</p>
<p>Most <a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/a0032734">social science researchers</a> focus on explicit and implicit attitudes that individuals have and the way these attitudes influence individual behavior and decisions. But, as it turns out, the relationship between personal biases and subsequent behaviors is <a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/a0032734">not necessarily</a> a strong one. </p>
<p>A different story emerges, though, when looking at bias at the aggregate level, or a broader view seen by bringing together various parts.</p>
<p>As University of North Carolina psychology professor <a href="http://bkpayne.web.unc.edu">Keith Payne</a> and his colleagues <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/1047840X.2017.1335568">explain</a>, people’s social interactions, the media they consume and other environmental cues are likely to influence their attitudes about race. If this is the case, then racial attitudes captured at aggregate level, whether a metropolitan area, county or state, reflect the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/1047840x.2017.1335568">bias of crowds</a>. </p>
<p>Collective biases, more than individual ones, help to shape people and systems. To illustrate, researchers have shown that community-level racism can help explain <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2017.03.036">racial gaps</a> in preterm births and infant birth weight, lethal force used by <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/1948550617711229">police</a>, punishment in schools and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0226938">reactions</a> to social justice movements, among others. </p>
<p>Extending this work, we focused on racial attitudes at the county level. We asked how the racial attitudes of the broader community influence COVID-19 health-related outcomes.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Watching media can impact your attitudes about race." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/372108/original/file-20201130-21-ppc69o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/372108/original/file-20201130-21-ppc69o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/372108/original/file-20201130-21-ppc69o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/372108/original/file-20201130-21-ppc69o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/372108/original/file-20201130-21-ppc69o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/372108/original/file-20201130-21-ppc69o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/372108/original/file-20201130-21-ppc69o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">What appears in the media can impact what you think about race.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/news-reporter-interviewing-politician-on-camera-royalty-free-image/138711395?adppopup=true">Hill Street Productions via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Our study design</h2>
<p>In <a href="https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0242044">our recent study</a>, we collected data from a variety of publicly available data sets. The racial attitude data came from a long-time Harvard <a href="https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/">study</a>, and the researchers post the data (without identifying information) <a href="https://osf.io/vp5m2/">online</a>. This meant taking over 80,000 responses and aggregating these data to the county level. We ultimately had data for 817 counties in the U.S.</p>
<p>For COVID-19 cases and deaths, we relied on the <a href="https://usafacts.org/visualizations/coronavirus-covid-19-spread-map/">data</a> from USAFacts. This is the same source the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6946a6.htm">uses</a>. We looked at the total cases and deaths from Jan. 22 through Aug. 31, 2020. </p>
<p>We also wanted to consider other factors that might impact the results, all of which were <a href="https://www.countyhealthrankings.org">publicly available</a>. This included how county residents rated their own health, if they had plenty of food, if they had health insurance and their family income. We also accounted for county demographics, including the residents’ age, gender, race and ethnicity. </p>
<h2>Racism and COVID-19</h2>
<p>We found that, even after taking into account the health and demographics of the county residents, explicit and implicit racial attitudes were related to COVID-19 cases. The stronger the racism, the more COVID-19 cases the county recorded. </p>
<p>Further, the relationship between racism and COVID-19 cases was stronger when counties had a high number of Black residents.
We also found that implicit racial attitudes predicted COVID-19 deaths. Again, this was even beyond the effects of the health and demographic factors. </p>
<p>In short, racism at the county level was predictive of COVID-19 health-related outcomes. </p>
<h2>Implications</h2>
<p>Our results provide clear evidence that county-level racism is linked with COVID-19 health-related outcomes. </p>
<p>But why? We suggest that, when examined at the aggregate level, racial attitudes reflect <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/1047840x.2017.1335568">systemic forms of racism</a>. They show the bias of crowds and the deeper biases that are embedded in society.
<a href="https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=uerZAAAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PP1&dq=Systemic+racism:+A+theory+of+oppression+Feagin+2006&ots=0O-5jj46Rg&sig=KFzJePBVEsUrlKK0G36M16dx3ys#v=onepage&q=Systemic%20racism%3A%20A%20theory%20of%20oppression%20Feagin%202006&f=false">Systemic</a> forms of racism are those where values, policies and the ways we go about life are structured in a way that advantage white people over racial and ethnic minorities. <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/06/15/systemic-racism-what-does-mean/5343549002/">Racial disparities</a> in access to health, quality education, safe housing, wealth and the criminal justice system are just a few indicators, out <a href="https://time.com/5851855/systemic-racism-america/">of many</a>. </p>
<p>Our study is not the only one to show the impact of racism on health-related outcomes. Consider a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aax2342">recent study</a> of machine learning. Here, the researchers found that health inequalities over time resulted in algorithms that were racially biased. The end result was that software used to manage population health actually advantaged white people over Black people. </p>
<p>And, as we noted before, county-level racism is linked with other health outcomes, including <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797616658450">mortality rates</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2017.03.036">infant health</a>. </p>
<h2>Public health implications</h2>
<p>Our results also underscore the importance of recognizing that racism is a public health issue. A variety of organizations, like the American Public Health Association and the American Medical Association, have made statements to this effect. </p>
<p>[<em>Deep knowledge, daily.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=deepknowledge">Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter</a>.]</p>
<p>We see many action steps to take. </p>
<p>First, health care providers should participate in regular training aimed at recognizing their explicit and implicit racial biases. This is a necessary first step toward reducing health inequalities among racial and ethnic minority patients.</p>
<p>Beyond a focus on individual health care providers, local, county and state governments can take steps to improve access and quality of health care for all people. </p>
<p><em>This article has been updated to correct the affiliation of a cited researcher.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/150077/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Blacks are at greater risk of dying from COVID-19 than whites. A study that examined racism at the country level had surprising results.
George B. Cunningham, Professor of Sport Management and Sr. Assistant Provost for Graduate and Professional Studies, Texas A&M University
Lisa T. Wigfall, Assistant Professor, Health and Kinesiology, Texas A&M University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/147891
2020-10-20T12:18:55Z
2020-10-20T12:18:55Z
Prejudice against people with darker skin may make donors less generous
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/363727/original/file-20201015-21-hoco3s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=47%2C155%2C3946%2C2335&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">People in Zambia gather while awaiting food distribution in January 2020.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/people-await-for-a-food-distribution-organized-by-news-photo/1200189344">Guillem Sartorio/AFP via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>The <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/topics/research-brief-83231">Research Brief</a> is a short take about interesting academic work.</em></p>
<h2>The big idea</h2>
<p>U.S. donors are inclined to give less generously to charities in developing countries when they believe those funds will <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s11266-020-00277-8">help people with darker skin</a>.</p>
<p>That’s what I found out when I measured the implicit skin-tone bias of 750 people who completed an online survey. The donors who harbored more implicit bias against darker skin were less likely to give more than US$10 to the charity than those who were less prejudiced.</p>
<h2>How I did my work</h2>
<p>I recruited the participants through a virtual labor market known as <a href="https://www.mturk.com/worker">Amazon MTurk</a>. They were asked about their age, income and education, and other characteristics. Then I assessed their <a href="https://theconversation.com/american-society-teaches-everyone-to-be-racist-but-you-can-rewrite-subconscious-stereotypes-141676">bias toward light skin or dark skin</a> by relying on a variant of the <a href="https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/takeatest.html">Implicit Association Test</a>, a common <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssresearch.2011.02.004">research tool</a> for this purpose. Finally, I asked how much money they are likely to give to people living in developing countries. Participants responded <a href="https://www.simplypsychology.org/likert-scale.html">using a scale</a> that included an option to give none at all and ranges of under $10, $10 to $100, more than $100 but less than $1,000, and more than $1,000.</p>
<p>As I explained in an <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s11266-020-00277-8">article in Voluntas</a>, an academic journal, the participants who were more biased against people with dark skin were more inclined to give a smaller amount of money than the others.</p>
<h2>Why it matters</h2>
<p>Prior research has suggested that donors are more likely to give to people perceived as “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1559-1816.1979.tb02716.x">innocent victims</a>,” such as crying children or a single mother. A common explanation for this is that these images foster feelings of guilt and sympathy.</p>
<p>But many scholars and nonprofit leaders criticize the use of images intended to elicit pity. This kind of “<a href="https://newint.org/features/2014/12/01/development-pornography/">poverty porn</a>,” they argue, can strip human dignity from the people who appear to be begging donors for help in photos and videos.</p>
<p>Also, this imagery conveys an incomplete or distorted picture. For example, not all children in developing countries constantly cry. And not all women who live in poverty are single. It is possible to be poor but happy within a family anchored by a stable marriage and yet deserving of charitable support from people who are living in more fortunate circumstances.</p>
<p>My study adds evidence that relying on stereotypical images for charitable fundraising can prove counterproductive if they discourage giving to international charities at higher levels. </p>
<p>[<em>Deep knowledge, daily.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=deepknowledge">Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter</a>.]</p>
<h2>What’s next</h2>
<p>Further research is needed to determine how nonprofits can accurately represent the people who will benefit from charitable giving without stereotyping them. </p>
<p>I plan to conduct a series of experiments where participants will see different images of beneficiaries selected from the sample of images used by charities and record if images increase their explicit and implicit biases against people of color. </p>
<p>Building on my <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/nvsm.1542">previous work</a> with philanthropy scholar <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=F0rg8fYAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">Angela M. Eikenberry</a>, I also plan to enhance the understanding of how the people who benefit from charitable donations might want to be portrayed by the charities that raise these funds. In addition, I will interview donors and fundraisers to learn more about how they assess the worthiness of individual beneficiaries in low-income countries.</p>
<p>I believe that gathering insights from fundraisers, donors and people who benefit from charitable dollars will enhance what experts understand about how this kind of fundraising works.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/147891/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Abhishek Bhati does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Using a common tool for measuring subconscious stereotypes, a scholar assessed how bias against dark skin can influence an inclination to support a charity serving people in low-income countries.
Abhishek Bhati, Assistant Professor of Political Science, Bowling Green State University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/141676
2020-09-17T11:25:16Z
2020-09-17T11:25:16Z
American society teaches everyone to be racist – but you can rewrite subconscious stereotypes
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/358228/original/file-20200915-18-1uduvtc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=202%2C50%2C2192%2C1539&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">People learn racism from the culture that surrounds them and media they consume, but that doesn't need to be the end of the story.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/teacher-during-an-online-coding-language-class-for-school-news-photo/1208282634"> Gavriil Grigorov\TASS via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Progress toward a more just and equitable society may be on the horizon. Since the killing of George Floyd by a white police officer in May, around the United States, <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-52951093">millions of people have taken to the streets</a>, <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-53005243">statues have been felled</a>, leaders have been <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/jemimamcevoy/2020/07/01/every-ceo-and-leader-that-stepped-down-since-black-lives-matter-protests-began/#170265855593">fired and pressured to resign</a>, and activists-turned-politicians have <a href="https://www.motherjones.com/2020-elections/2020/08/cori-bush-defeats-lacy-clay/">gained traction in prominent political races</a>. </p>
<p>But until people recognize that racism is wired into the American mind, we believe that few of these efforts are likely to actually reduce racist behavior.</p>
<p>Our work provides a way to understand how race and society influence the brain. One of us (<a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=nwI8ZXIAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">Waddell</a>) is a sociologist who researches social inequality; the other (<a href="https://scholar.google.ca/citations?user=Xvqh8BQAAAAJ&hl=en&citsig=AMD79oqHy00tGTBoPDqjnMYchPCsZhRJxQ">Pipitone</a>) is a psychologist who examines the biological implications of human behavior.</p>
<p>Our respective work reveals a difficult fact regarding recent efforts to eradicate racism from U.S. society: If you’re American – regardless of the color of your skin – racism likely structures how you think.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/358229/original/file-20200915-14-1j677vt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Woman walks past a Black Lives Matter mural" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/358229/original/file-20200915-14-1j677vt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/358229/original/file-20200915-14-1j677vt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/358229/original/file-20200915-14-1j677vt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/358229/original/file-20200915-14-1j677vt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/358229/original/file-20200915-14-1j677vt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/358229/original/file-20200915-14-1j677vt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/358229/original/file-20200915-14-1j677vt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Awareness of racial injustice in the United States seemed to increase in 2020.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/woman-walks-past-a-black-lives-matter-mural-on-august-25-news-photo/1268581512">Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images News via Getty Images</a></span>
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<h2>Everybody’s racist</h2>
<p>A great deal of attention has been paid to the rates at which police officers kill minorities. In the U.S., police <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/investigations/police-shootings-database/">shoot and kill Black people at two and a half times the rate</a> at which they kill white people, and the disparity between Latinos and whites is nearly as high, about 1.8 times more frequent.</p>
<p>But it’s not only white officers who kill minorities at higher rates. Researchers who <a href="https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1903856116">compiled a database of officer-involved shootings</a> found that <a href="https://research.msu.edu/the-truth-behind-racial-disparties-in-fatal-police-shootings/">minority police officers are just as likely</a> as their white counterparts to shoot Blacks and Latinos more frequently. This work is supported by <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/puar.12956">additional research</a>, which concludes that “The killing of black suspects is a police problem, not a white police problem.”</p>
<p>Does that mean that racism isn’t at play? Not at all. Rather, these facts reflect the depth to which race affects everyone in U.S. society. The aforementioned findings are echoed by the anti-racism movement advanced by historian <a href="https://theundefeated.com/features/ibram-kendi-leading-scholar-of-racism-says-education-and-love-are-not-the-answer/">Ibram Kendi, who recently said</a>:</p>
<p>“You can be someone who has no intention to be racist, but because you’re conditioned in a world that is racist and a country that is structured in anti-Black racism, you yourself can perpetuate those ideas.”</p>
<p>Racism is so deeply <a href="https://theglobepost.com/2020/06/17/racism-us-poc/">interwoven into the nation’s culture</a> that it is <a href="https://www.russellsage.org/publications/categorically-unequal-1">embedded in the neural processors inside our skulls</a>. This is true for minorities and nonminorities alike. Racism subconsciously affects the way we view other humans and perniciously affects people of color.</p>
<h2>Mental shortcuts form the foundation for bias</h2>
<p>One important feature of the human mind is its ability to consolidate and organize massive amounts of information into categories. Categorization allows you to create mental shortcuts – <a href="https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-a-schema-2795873">what psychologists call schemas</a> – which speed up decision-making in the future. In doing so, you’re able to make quicker decisions without reconsidering streams of information again and again.</p>
<p>Schemas allow you to reduce the amount of energy you expend on decision-making by categorizing your world into simplified, transferable forms – better known as <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/hypa.12170">stereotypes</a>. </p>
<p>This categorical behavior has been <a href="https://faculty.sites.uci.edu/olisng/files/2019/08/Sng-Williams-Neuberg-2016-Handbook-Chapter.pdf">largely adaptive throughout human history</a>. Living in small bands under ancestral conditions, detecting allies or potential enemies would have been paramount to survival. In the modern world, however, these mental shortcuts come with a dark side.</p>
<p>Schemas are grounded in cultural teachings. They’re nurtured by your upbringing, your educators, your mentors, the movies and shows you watch, and your physical surroundings. And when it comes to race and ethnicity, schemas embody both the positive and negative associations that society teaches about different racial and ethnic groups. Over time, everyone, regardless of their own race and ethnicity, can develop implicit biases that feed into stereotypes, prejudiced behavior and discrimination.</p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.74.6.1464">Psychologists have examined implicit attitude biases</a> within the context of race and ethnicity. The Implicit Association Test measures the way in which people’s ideas and beliefs relate to their subconscious attitudes about viewing Black or white faces, or names that are typically associated with a particular racial or ethnic group. <a href="https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/takeatest.html">You can take the test here</a>.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="InstagramEmbed" data-react-props="{"url":"https://www.instagram.com/p/B0cW7c0pF22","accessToken":"127105130696839|b4b75090c9688d81dfd245afe6052f20"}"></div></p>
<p>Researchers ask participants to pair concepts associated with being “Black” or “white” with attributes such as “pleasant” or “unpleasant.” They then measure the time that participants take to process information. Fast times imply the association makes sense to participants, whereas slow times indicate the opposite.</p>
<p>The results show that white Americans hold more positive associations for other white Americans than they do for Black individuals. Research by psychologist <a href="https://doi.org/10.1037//1089-2699.6.1.101">Brian Nosek and colleagues</a> shows that Black Americans report conscious, or explicit, attitudes that are more positive toward other Black individuals than toward whites. However, the same Black participants show more positive implicit associations, or subconscious attitudes, toward white individuals than they do toward Blacks, thus demonstrating how implicit racial biases affect members of the majority and minority groups alike.</p>
<p><a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=__Ip_Q0AAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">Psychologist B. Keith Payne</a> studied how implicit biases <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8721.2006.00454.x">can have deadly consequences</a>. He and his colleagues asked volunteers to play a computer simulation in which they shoot people holding weapons while refraining from shooting people holding harmless objects, such as a hand tool.</p>
<p>Across multiple studies, participants are significantly more likely in the simulation to shoot Black men holding harmless objects than white men holding the same things. In these studies, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.83.6.1314">Black participants make the same deadly errors</a> as their white counterparts.</p>
<h2>Short-circuiting the mental shortcuts</h2>
<p>The mental shortcuts in people’s minds are structured mainly by society. And if you are American, your mind observes from a very early age, whether consciously or not, that opportunity is <a href="https://apps.urban.org/features/wealth-inequality-charts/">tilted in favor of white people</a>.</p>
<p>Your brain notices details like white individuals having more access to <a href="https://uncf.org/pages/k-12-disparity-facts-and-stats">quality education</a>, <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK24693/">good health care</a> and <a href="https://www.marketwatch.com/story/white-workers-are-more-likely-than-black-or-latino-americans-to-have-a-good-job-even-with-the-same-level-of-education-2019-10-17">high-paying jobs</a>. And every day, from the news, entertainment and social media, your mind absorbs images of <a href="https://www.racialequitytools.org/resourcefiles/Media-Impact-onLives-of-Black-Men-and-Boys-OppAgenda.pdf">minorities being portrayed as criminals, gang members and freeloaders</a>. Over time, your mind begins to subconsciously categorize minorities as inferior.</p>
<p>As depressing as this process might sound, not all is lost. Along with a natural proclivity to take mental shortcuts and be more suspect of individuals from groups different from your own, human beings have an innate ability to critically think and reason. Your frontal cortex, the area of the brain that allows for the most complex cognitive abilities and behavioral inhibition, is <a href="https://doi.org/10.1126/science.360.6395.1311-g">unmatched in the animal kingdom</a>. So, while your brain may jump to conclusions, you have the ability to reconfigure your subconscious inclinations.</p>
<p>How can you do this? </p>
<p>At the individual level, you can begin breaking down dangerous stereotypes by introducing your mind to <a href="https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2020/06/a-reading-list-on-issues-of-race/">more accurate depictions of our highly unequal social reality</a>.</p>
<p>[<em>Deep knowledge, daily.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=deepknowledge">Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter</a>.]</p>
<p>Individual awareness is necessary, but not sufficient to bring about societal-level change. The only way to permanently shift a mental construct such as racism is by fundamentally reorganizing the physical world that informs our minds. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/358230/original/file-20200915-20-hu8lz4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Back of a man whose t-shirt reads 'Speak up against injustice'" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/358230/original/file-20200915-20-hu8lz4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/358230/original/file-20200915-20-hu8lz4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/358230/original/file-20200915-20-hu8lz4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/358230/original/file-20200915-20-hu8lz4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/358230/original/file-20200915-20-hu8lz4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/358230/original/file-20200915-20-hu8lz4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/358230/original/file-20200915-20-hu8lz4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Recognizing and changing racially biased systems should start to chip away at unconscious biases.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/âblack-lives-matterâ-demonstrators-gathered-at-the-columbus-news-photo/1228502145">Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>In the United States, this would require desegregating America’s schools, which, 60 years after Brown v. Board of Education, <a href="https://www.epi.org/publication/schools-are-still-segregated-and-black-children-are-paying-a-price/">remain unequal</a>. It would also require desegregating American neighborhoods, which are <a href="https://inequality.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/SOTU_2015_spatial-segregation.pdf">deeply divided along racial and ethnic lines</a>. This shift would also depend on equal access to health care, <a href="https://www.kff.org/disparities-policy/report/key-facts-on-health-and-health-care-by-race-and-ethnicity/">which did improve a bit for minorities</a> following the passage of the Affordable Care Act of 2010. Finally, a true shift in mental constructs regarding race and ethnicity will rest upon equal representation in political offices, where <a href="https://scholars.org/contribution/how-local-political-party-leaders-perpetuate-underrepresentation-minorities-us">minorities continue to be severely underrepresented</a>. </p>
<p>In time, more equal opportunities for minorities will rewrite the implicit biases that guide each of us. Until then, Americans’ subconscious minds, as well as our decisions, will continue to reflect the divisions we see in our physical world.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/141676/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
If you’re American – regardless of the color of your skin – racism structures how you think. Changing the system should change these implicit biases.
Benjamin Waddell, Associate Professor of Sociology, Fort Lewis College
R. Nathan Pipitone, Assistant Professor of Psychology, Florida Gulf Coast University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/145970
2020-09-10T19:12:29Z
2020-09-10T19:12:29Z
Why female bosses get different reactions than men when they criticize employees
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/357516/original/file-20200910-22-6ryld1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=170%2C98%2C5676%2C3889&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Both men and women find critical feedback harder to take from a woman. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/business-partners-in-discussion-royalty-free-image/920638152">pixelfit/E+ via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Imagine that your boss Ethan calls you into his office. He expresses disappointment in your recent performance and lack of commitment. How would you react? Would you accept the feedback and put in more effort? Or would you pout in your office and start looking for a new job?
Now, would your reaction be different if your boss was not named Ethan but Emily?</p>
<p>I’m a <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=WJe3b0UAAAAJ&hl=en#">professor of economics</a>, and <a href="http://ftp.iza.org/dp12611.pdf">my research</a> investigates this very question. </p>
<p>This has important implications for the success of women in leadership, such as Jane Fraser, who <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/10/business/citigroup-ceo-jane-fraser.html">will take over Citigroup in February</a>, becoming the first woman to lead a major Wall Street bank. </p>
<p>If giving feedback is more likely to backfire for women in positions of power, they may adopt <a href="http://people.tamu.edu/%7Edserra/ChakrabortySerraLeadershipFeb2019.pdf">less effective management strategies or become altogether less interested</a> in holding leadership positions.</p>
<h2>Women in the workplace</h2>
<p>Women make up <a href="https://www.catalyst.org/research/women-in-sp-500-companies/">45% of employees</a> of S&P 500 companies. Yet, they only make up 37% of managers at the midlevel, 27% of bosses at the senior level and about 6% of CEOs.</p>
<p>These disparities remain despite women having overtaken men in <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-08-06/u-s-women-outpacing-men-in-higher-education-demographic-trends">educational attainment</a>. They have also begun <a href="https://hbr.org/2012/03/a-study-in-leadership-women-do">scoring higher on leadership competency tests</a> in recent years.</p>
<p>Existing studies <a href="https://doi.org/10.2202/1538-0637.1416">do not find clear evidence of gender discrimination</a> against job applicants for upper management. Due to methodological constraints, such research typically focuses on hiring for <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-4560.2012.01746.x">entry-level positions</a>.</p>
<p>Discrimination in promotion is much harder to study, as work interactions are more difficult for researchers to observe. My research, however, helps address this issue.</p>
<h2>Drop in job satisfaction</h2>
<p>For my study, I hired 2,700 workers online to transcribe receipts, randomly assigning a male or female name to a manager and randomly assigning which workers would receive performance feedback.</p>
<p>Results show that both women and men react more negatively to criticism if it comes from a woman. The subjects reported that criticism by a woman led to a larger reduction in job satisfaction than criticism by a man. Employees were also doubly disinterested in working for the company in the future if they had been criticized by a female boss.</p>
<p>Women in upper management are not simply being ignored. Workers hired for the transcription in our study actually spent slightly more time reading and thinking about feedback from female managers.</p>
<p>Nor can <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/20439056.pdf">implicit biases</a> explain why employees are less likely to take criticism well from women. While we found that workers in this study were, on average, more likely to subconsciously associate men with career and women with family, this tendency does not predict whether they discriminate against female bosses.</p>
<p>This type of discrimination is also not due to a lack of exposure to female supervisors. Workers stating that their previous female supervisor was highly effective were just as likely to bristle at the criticism from a woman boss.</p>
<p>Instead, what seems to drive the results are gendered expectations of management styles. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1471-6402.2007.00326.x">Other studies</a> have shown that workers are three times more likely to associate giving praise with female managers and twice more likely to associate giving criticism with male managers. People react negatively if something <a href="https://doi.org/10.1006/jesp.1996.1323">violates their expectations</a>.</p>
<p>Case in point: critical female bosses.</p>
<p>It remains unclear the extent to which results from this study can be generalized across more traditional work settings. Yet, the “gig economy” and other remote work arrangements are a <a href="https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/employment-and-growth/independent-work-choice-necessity-and-the-gig-economy">rapidly expanding</a> part of the economy.</p>
<p>Some have argued that <a href="https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/goldin/files/the_cost_of_workplace_flexibility_for_high-powered_professionals.pdf">these jobs offer more flexibility</a> and thus particularly benefit women. However, findings from this study highlight additional concerns about discrimination in the gig economy due to lack of regulatory oversight and equal opportunity protections in these jobs.</p>
<h2>What can be done?</h2>
<p>Recently, some companies started trying to stem discrimination against women in management positions.</p>
<p>Several have employed “<a href="https://www.coachteam.no/Documents/ExecutiveCoaching360Fed.pdf">feedback coaches</a>,” teaching workers to focus on the content of feedback rather than the identity of the person providing it. There is also evidence that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2017.2901">informing people of their biases may affect their behavior</a>.</p>
<p>[<em>Deep knowledge, daily.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=deepknowledge">Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter</a>.]</p>
<p>Other research suggests that <a href="https://economics.sas.upenn.edu/system/files/working-papers/18-016%20PIER%20Paper%20Submission.pdf">highlighting specific credentials of women in leadership</a> – such as <a href="https://ideas.repec.org/p/sza/wpaper/wpapers282.html">positive evaluations or reference letters</a> – may be an effective remedy.</p>
<p>To end on a hopeful note: Negative reactions to criticism from female bosses in my study is lower among younger workers and disappears for those in their 20s. Though younger employees may discriminate more as they age, it could be that this is a generational shift.</p>
<p><em>This is an updated version of an <a href="https://theconversation.com/bosses-face-more-discrimination-if-they-are-women-from-employees-of-any-gender-125292">article originally published</a> on Oct. 17, 2019.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/145970/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Martin Abel does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Both male and female employees report reacting more negatively to criticism from a woman, which has implications for the success of women in leadership roles such as Citigroup’s incoming CEO.
Martin Abel, Assistant Professor of Economics, Middlebury
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/142587
2020-07-23T17:36:31Z
2020-07-23T17:36:31Z
Beware of bias training: Addressing systemic racism is not an easy fix
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/348456/original/file-20200720-15-17lai1y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=49%2C0%2C5472%2C3604&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Implicit bias training has become a lucrative business in recent years, but it doesn't always deliver the expected results.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://unsplash.com/photos/KdeqA3aTnBY">(Dylan Gillis/Unsplash) </a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The tragic deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and others have catalyzed calls for organizations to do more to address systemic racism in our midst. In response, many organizations have issued solidarity statements and committed to meaningful action. <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/business/black-owned-bookstores-anti-racist-literature/">Bookstores have seen a spike in demand for anti-racism titles</a>, while organizational leaders scramble to find workshops, webinars and training to offer their employees on the topic of racial bias. </p>
<p>Among the different forms of diversity training, a popular offering addresses the concept of implicit racial bias. Implicit biases are automatic, outside of our conscious awareness, and influence us despite our best intentions. </p>
<p>Since the concept of implicit prejudice was <a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-295X.102.1.4">first introduced</a> in 1995, implicit bias has permeated almost all aspects of equity, diversity and inclusion training in multiple sectors. Implicit bias training entered the mainstream when <a href="https://theconversation.com/starbucks-and-the-impact-of-implicit-bias-training-96491">Starbucks closed its stores</a> to offer employees the training in 2018. </p>
<p>Over time, a lucrative industry has developed around corporate bias training. Bias has become big business because some profit-driven consultants offer training as an easy fix.</p>
<p>As part of a team that has studied bias training for years, I have extensively researched how it influences individuals and organizations. We have found that while bias training may be useful to start a conversation, there may be <a href="https://doi.org/10.1097/ACM.0000000000003173">unintended consequences</a>. For example, bringing biases into awareness for learners can trigger negative and defensive emotional reactions. Another problem is that bias training is perceived as an easy fix but addressing systemic racism is much more complicated.</p>
<h2>When and how bias training works</h2>
<p>A review of diversity training found that <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31567169/">less than half</a> of the interventions showed some improvement. Another review found only 30 studies and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1186/s40359-019-0299-7">did not show</a> any long-term change in outcomes. Bias training can also lead to a defensive backlash, triggering tension, identity compartmentalization and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1097/ACM.0000000000002382">negative emotions</a> such as shame.</p>
<p>Another problem is that bias is baked into the fabric of our organizations and society at large. Any educational intervention directed toward individuals without appreciation of the ubiquitous nature of bias in our society will ultimately fail. Placing the onus on individuals to address widespread organizational inequities can contribute to a sense of futility and helplessness.</p>
<p>In our research, we found that bias training is only effective if it is designed as one component of a larger multipronged approach.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Five hands on a table" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/348699/original/file-20200721-35-1kw042l.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/348699/original/file-20200721-35-1kw042l.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/348699/original/file-20200721-35-1kw042l.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/348699/original/file-20200721-35-1kw042l.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/348699/original/file-20200721-35-1kw042l.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/348699/original/file-20200721-35-1kw042l.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/348699/original/file-20200721-35-1kw042l.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">To be effective, bias training must be adapted to particular contexts and settings.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Clay Banks/Unsplash)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>First, any bias training must be designed with context and professional identity in mind. For example, our initial training was tailored to a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1097/ACM.0000000000002782">specific work unit in a hospital.</a> When we attempted to transfer the same training to other contexts, it was not as effective. When requests were made to apply the training to other contexts we advised that research and engagement would be necessary to understand why bias training was needed and how bias was perceived in that context. </p>
<p>Second, bias training is more effective when people work and train together. Training was less effective if doctors and nurses learn separately, and more effective when they work through relevant cases in a collaborative way. Training in teams also helps individuals feel comfortable opening up about their biases and accepting their vulnerabilities. Training that enhances collaboration and openness leads to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s10459-018-9816-3">social reinforcement</a> of behavioural change.</p>
<p>Third, sustaining the effects of training requires tangible changes in policy and visible support of <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41575-020-0349-x">organizational leaders</a>. Rather than focus exclusively on training others, leaders must look within their own approaches to equity and diversity. Leaders who model a more inclusive approach and integrate bias training with other initiatives to enhance inclusion and belonging within their organization will be more successful than those who rely on training alone.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/starbucks-and-the-impact-of-implicit-bias-training-96491">Starbucks and the impact of implicit bias training</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Lastly, we must humble ourselves and realize that single training sessions are unlikely to produce meaningful learning outcomes for participants. Rather than singular curricular interventions, approaches <a href="https://doi.org/10.1097/ACM.0000000000001819">should include</a> opportunities to refresh and repeat key messages with attention to sustainable behavioural change over time. </p>
<p>Racial bias is not something that we can <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s40037-019-00533-8">measure and fix</a> through training alone. There are no boxes we can check or certificate we can complete to fix systemic racism. </p>
<p>Advancing justice and equity requires us to roll up our sleeves and do the work. Each day we must confront our biased selves in the mirror and work hard to examine how biases manifest through our behaviours, policies and organizational practices. </p>
<p>But reflection alone will not fix anything. We must collectively change the biased norms within our organizations and be prepared for the inevitable discomfort that accompanies changes to the status quo. </p>
<p>Addressing racial bias is not just hard work, it is also messy work. We must accept that we will stumble along the way. Anti-racism is a journey, not a destination.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/142587/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Javeed Sukhera receives funding from Physician Services Incorporated, Associated Medical Services, and the Academic Medical Organization of Southwestern Ontario.</span></em></p>
Recent years have seen a rise in the number of businesses offering employees bias training. However, bias training is not a one-size-fits-all solution and unless tailored to specific contexts loses its value.
Javeed Sukhera, Associate professor, Psychiatry, Western University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/142237
2020-07-21T12:07:17Z
2020-07-21T12:07:17Z
New teachers mistakenly assume Black students are angry
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/347461/original/file-20200714-38-1dpfixv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=235%2C121%2C4013%2C2382&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">African American students are disproportionately punished, starting in preschool.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/12from-left-to-right-musa-zaid-mekhi-love-simone-dillard-9-news-photo/148455435">Marvin Joseph/The Washington Post via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>The <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/topics/research-brief-83231">Research Brief</a> is a short take about interesting academic work.</em></p>
<h2>The big idea</h2>
<p>College students who are training to become teachers are 36% more likely to mistakenly believe that a <a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/doi/10.1037/emo0000756">Black child is angry</a> when that child isn’t making an angry face than if a white child makes the same facial expression, according to our new study.</p>
<p>We determined this by having a group of 72 Black and white child actors trained by experts to <a href="https://www.paulekman.com/facial-action-coding-system/">make specific facial muscle movements</a>. For example, to come across as surprised, the children raised their eyebrows and widened their eyes. To convey anger, the children furrowed their eyebrows and tightened their lips.</p>
<p>We designed our study this way to make sure that no one could say maybe the Black children were making angry faces more often than the white children. They absolutely were not.</p>
<p>[<em><a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=experts">Expertise in your inbox. Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter and get expert takes on today’s news, every day.</a></em>]</p>
<p>Then we had teachers-in-training watch videos of the children making facial expressions and we asked them to identify each emotion they saw. </p>
<h2>Why it matters</h2>
<p>Black children are three times <a href="https://www.vox.com/identities/2018/4/5/17199810/school-discipline-race-racism-gao">more likely to be suspended or expelled</a> from school <a href="https://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-18-258">than their white classmates</a>.</p>
<p>This problem begins early on, <a href="https://news.yale.edu/2005/05/17/pre-k-students-expelled-more-three-times-rate-k-12-students">before kids even make it to kindergarten</a>. Black children also tend to <a href="https://www.nyu.edu/about/news-publications/news/2017/may/teacher-racial-bias-matters-more-for-students-of-color-.html">feel less understood</a> by their teachers than white children.</p>
<p>The potential consequences of poor <a href="https://www.apa.org/education/k12/relationships">relationships between students and their teachers</a> and <a href="https://www.vox.com/identities/2018/4/5/17199810/school-discipline-race-racism-gao">school discipline</a> can be long-term and last well into adulthood.</p>
<h2>What other research is being done</h2>
<p>Previously, researchers had determined that college students who aspire to become teachers are more likely to misread <a href="https://newsone.com/3818905/racial-angry-bias-educators-study/">Black adults’ emotions</a>, as compared to sensing what white adults are feeling, and that they mistakenly believe that Black adults are angry when they are not feeling angry.</p>
<p>This is the first time that a study has shown that teachers are prone to mistakenly seeing anger where none exists in Black children as well.</p>
<h2>What still isn’t known</h2>
<p>There are signs teachers are not the only adults who mistakenly see Black children as angry and overreact and sometimes the consequences are tragic.</p>
<p>In 2019, for example, a police officer in Orlando, Florida, <a href="https://theconversation.com/video-of-6-year-old-girls-arrest-shows-the-perils-of-putting-police-in-primary-schools-132637">arrested two Black 6-year-olds</a> while they were at school, traumatizing them. And a police officer in Cleveland, Ohio, killed <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/in-depth/news/2020/06/22/tamir-rices-mother-fights-racism-america-and-police-brutality/3116710001/">Tamir Rice</a> in 2014, when the 12-year-old boy was playing with a toy gun in a public park.</p>
<p>There are probably many other professions for which there are consequences if people mistakenly perceive that a Black person is angry. We believe it’s <a href="https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/four_ways_teachers_can_reduce_implicit_bias">worth it for everyone to make an effort</a> to try to break this pattern.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/142237/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alison Cooke received funding from William T. Grant Foundation and the Carolina Consortium on Human Development.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Amy Halberstadt received funding for this research from the William T. Grant Foundation. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Pamela Watkins Garner received funding from the William T. Grant Foundation and the Center for the Advancement of Well Being at George Mason University. She is a also a board member at iSchool for the Future in Fairfax, Virginia.</span></em></p>
These new findings could help explain why Black students are more likely to be suspended, expelled or otherwise disciplined than other children.
Alison Cooke, Ph.D. Candidate of Psychology, North Carolina State University
Amy Halberstadt, Professor of Psychology, North Carolina State University
Pamela Watkins Garner, Professor of Childhood Studies, George Mason University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/139425
2020-06-29T12:13:33Z
2020-06-29T12:13:33Z
How racism in US health system hinders care and costs lives of African Americans
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/341771/original/file-20200615-65961-1bgakex.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=5%2C0%2C3964%2C2658&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Mortality rates for COVID-19 are two to three times higher for African Americans than whites.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/close-up-portrait-of-a-man-royalty-free-image/1211723458?adppopup=true">Getty Images/EyeEm/Robin Gentry</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>As the COVID-19 pandemic swept across the U.S., the virus hit African Americans <a href="https://www.ama-assn.org/delivering-care/population-care/why-african-american-communities-are-being-hit-hard-covid-19">disproportionately hard</a>. African Americans are still contracting the illness – and dying from it – <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/05/30/865413079/what-do-coronavirus-racial-disparities-look-like-state-by-state">at rates twice as high</a> as would be expected based on their share of the population.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/04/07/coronavirus-is-infecting-killing-black-americans-an-alarmingly-high-rate-post-analysis-shows/">In Michigan</a>, African Americans are only 14% of the population, but account for one-third of the state’s COVID-19 cases and 40% of its deaths. </p>
<p>In some states the disparities are even more stark. <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/05/30/865413079/what-do-coronavirus-racial-disparities-look-like-state-by-state">Wisconsin and Missouri</a> have infection and mortality rates three or more times greater than expected based on their share of the population. </p>
<p>Speculation has suggested these disproportions are <a href="https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2766098">due to several factors</a>: African Americans are more likely to live in poor neighborhoods, work at riskier occupations, and have more underlying health conditions and limited access to health care. But <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.annepidem.2020.05.003">similar inequities exist</a> in African American communities with above-average wealth and health care access. <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/prince-georges-maryland-coronavirus-health-disparities/2020/04/26/0f120788-82f9-11ea-ae26-989cfce1c7c7_story.html">Staggering rates of COVID-19</a> occurred in Prince George’s County, Maryland – the nation’s wealthiest African American enclave. Comparable white communities were <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/prince-georges-maryland-coronavirus-health-disparities/2020/04/26/0f120788-82f9-11ea-ae26-989cfce1c7c7_story.html">relatively unaffected</a>.</p>
<p>As experts in <a href="https://psychology.iupui.edu/people/zapolski-tamika">clinical psychology</a> and <a href="https://nursing.iupui.edu/directory/profiles/faculty/oruche-ukamaka.shtml">psychiatric nursing</a>, we know this elevated risk for African Americans is not uncommon. It is true regardless of income, education level, or health care access. And it is true for other things besides COVID-19. African American women are <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/health/womens-health/u-s-finally-has-better-maternal-mortality-data-black-mothers-n1125896">more than twice as likely</a> to die from childbirth than white women. Even if the African American women were educated and wealthy, they were <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s10995-018-2682-z">more likely to die</a> from childbirth than uneducated and poor white women.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/341774/original/file-20200615-65921-1gwj5xo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/341774/original/file-20200615-65921-1gwj5xo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/341774/original/file-20200615-65921-1gwj5xo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/341774/original/file-20200615-65921-1gwj5xo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/341774/original/file-20200615-65921-1gwj5xo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/341774/original/file-20200615-65921-1gwj5xo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/341774/original/file-20200615-65921-1gwj5xo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Racism within U.S. institutions, businesses, and government is nothing new. This photo, taken in Jackson, Miss., is from 1961.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/sign-in-jackson-mississippi-which-reads-waiting-room-for-news-photo/77558656?adppopup=true">Getty Images / William Lovelace</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Racism: the root cause</h2>
<p><a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25032386/">An analysis by the National Academy of Sciences</a> found African Americans receive poorer quality care than white patients across all medical interventions and routine health services – even when insurance status, income, age, co-morbid conditions, and symptom expression were equal. <a href="https://www.statnews.com/2020/06/09/systemic-racism-black-health-disparities/">Experts point to racism</a> as a root cause for these disparities. Indeed, the American Academy of Pediatrics<a href="https://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/144/2/e20191765"> has outlined</a> how racism impacts health outcomes for African American children. We suggest the same is true for COVID-19 outcomes among African American adults. </p>
<p>Other barriers negatively impact the health of African Americans. That includes <a href="https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2015.302903">implicit bias</a> – attitudes, thoughts, and feelings existing outside of conscious awareness – as patients and providers communicate with each other. </p>
<p>[<em>Get our best science, health and technology stories.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/science-editors-picks-71/?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=science-best">Sign up for The Conversation’s science newsletter</a>.]</p>
<p>Implicit bias from a doctor or nurse affects the <a href="https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2015.302903">quality and quantity of information</a> shared with the patient about health conditions and treatment plans. <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3887515/">The worst case scenarios</a>: when providers withhold critical information about a health condition; when they don’t include the patient’s voice during decision making about care; and when they don’t refer the patient for further tests or specialty care. Implicit biases from health care workers can result in <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4845742/">patients being less likely to understand their health conditions</a>, which is necessary for patients to manage an illness effectively.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3887515/">Averse interactions</a> with physicians lead to long-lasting consequences for the patient, including unequal treatment and disparate health outcomes. And when it comes to ineffective patient-provider interactions, African Americans suffer the most. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/341775/original/file-20200615-65916-10udo0w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/341775/original/file-20200615-65916-10udo0w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/341775/original/file-20200615-65916-10udo0w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/341775/original/file-20200615-65916-10udo0w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/341775/original/file-20200615-65916-10udo0w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/341775/original/file-20200615-65916-10udo0w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/341775/original/file-20200615-65916-10udo0w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Health care professionals need to be aware of their implicit bias.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/doctor-giving-consultation-to-patient-using-digital-royalty-free-image/602981371?adppopup=true">Getty Images / Tetra Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Location, location, location</h2>
<p>The location of hospitals, clinics, and other health care facilities are often a barrier to care. Transportation – or the lack of it – <a href="https://doi.org/10.1108/S0275-4959(2013)0000031006">impacts the patient’s ability</a> to receive services. African American patients have noted the frustration when health care facilities are not close to their homes. To get there, many of them rely on public transportation. The result: missed or cancelled appointments, sometimes due to policies regarding late arrival times by patients.</p>
<p>Differences also exist between African American and white patients in the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ajem.2015.08.052">length of wait time</a> for appointments and the ability to <a href="https://www.healthaffairs.org/doi/pdf/10.1377/hlthaff.27.2.507">schedule follow-up appointments</a>. This can result in delayed health care – which leads to poorer health outcomes for illnesses, including COVID-19.</p>
<h2>Recommendations for addressing racism</h2>
<p>Consumers who are well informed about their health and confident in <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0738399116305699?via%3Dihub">managing their care</a> have better outcomes virtually across the board: in <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09540121.2015.1015478">HIV-AIDS</a>, cancer, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0738399110004271?via%3Dihub">mental health conditions</a> such as schizophrenia. </p>
<p>That said, here are three recommendations to address racism and reduce racial disparities in health care services:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Health care professionals need to become more aware of their implicit bias. Identify the problem, as the saying goes, and you’re halfway to solving the problem. One way to become more aware: take the implicit bias test <a href="https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/takeatest.html">here</a>.</p></li>
<li><p>Doctors and nurses need to be attentive and collaborative when communicating with patients. Empower the patient by encouraging questions and letting them express opinions. When patients believe the providers are there to support them, they manage their illness better. They also have a better perception of quality care. Ultimately this leads to <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5875387/">improved health outcomes</a>. </p></li>
<li><p>Hospitals, clinics, and doctor’s offices should provide more flexibility in delivering services. Telehealth – when doctors and patients communicate online, instead of an in-person visit – should be one of those services. They should also restructure scheduling policies, emphasizing shorter wait times and more slack if patients are late.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Health inequity for African Americans is not a new phenomenon. COVID-19, however, shined a light on the problem. Racism is not isolated to health care services, and it remains pervasive throughout our society. But by taking the tangible steps outlined here, providers can begin to solve the problem.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/139425/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tamika C.B. Zapolski receives funding from the National Institutes of Health. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ukamaka M. Oruche receives funding from National Institutes of Health, specifically, National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities. She is affiliated with Providence Care Community Health Initiative.</span></em></p>
COVID-19 has again demonstrated the health inequities that exist between African Americans and whites.
Tamika C.B. Zapolski, Associate Professor of Pyschology, IUPUI
Ukamaka M. Oruche, Associate Professor & Director of Global Programs, IUPUI
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/140816
2020-06-17T13:24:06Z
2020-06-17T13:24:06Z
Black Lives Matter: you may be a vocal supporter and still hold racist views
<p>The touch paper has been lit. Black Lives Matter have taken to the streets. The revolution has started – <a href="https://theconversation.com/statues-are-just-the-start-the-uk-is-peppered-with-slavery-heritage-140308">statues have been pulled down</a> and TV programmes have been removed from streaming services. Apologies are also coming in thick and fast – <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-KYgYTxJwjc">a tearful Keith Lemon actor</a>, a <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-52998870">“sincerely sorry” Ant and Dec</a>. Many white people <a href="https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/story/2020-06-15/black-lives-matter-white-celebrities-support">are now joining the cause</a>, stating their views on social media and beyond. </p>
<p>But racism is about action in everyday life, not just words or hashtags at a time of uprising. We can be careful about what we say – language is conscious and controllable. But it is perfectly possible to hold deep-seated racist views, sometimes subconsciously, and simultaneously announce you are definitely not racist.</p>
<p>Some ten years ago, I started <a href="https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/lsereviewofbooks/2013/02/19/book-review-our-racist-heart-beattie/">looking into the vexed question</a> of the under-representation of people from BAME backgrounds in academic and senior posts in universities. Universities were publically wringing their hands about this issue. It was emotionally charged with accusations of racial prejudice on the one hand, and the idea that racism is all in the past, with people just trying to get advantage by crying prejudice, on the other.</p>
<p>But what if most of us, at a conscious level, are no longer prone to open racial prejudice? What if at some deeper level, there is some independent system which is more susceptible to racial bias? This was the question we explored using the now well-known <a href="https://theconversation.com/think-youre-all-for-gender-equality-your-unconscious-may-have-other-ideas-69520">implicit association test</a>. </p>
<p>The basis for identifying bias in such tests is how quickly people associate white or black faces and names with concepts like “good” or “bad”. Research has shown that white people are quicker at associating white faces or names with the concept “good” than they are for black faces or names. </p>
<p>We tried to improve on the <a href="https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/takeatest.html">well-known Harvard test</a>, where all the faces are unfriendly, by making all faces nice and smiley. Surely, there would be no implicit racial bias here. Not so. We found a medium to strong implicit pro-white bias in white participants. This was regardless of what attitudes to race they reported that they had.</p>
<p>We also studied the shortlisting process for academic jobs experimentally. We presented participants with the CVs of four job candidates – two white, two BAME – for various positions with identical (but rotated) CVs. We also used a remote eye tracker to see what part of the CV they looked at on a computer screen. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/342422/original/file-20200617-94049-ki6uqv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/342422/original/file-20200617-94049-ki6uqv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342422/original/file-20200617-94049-ki6uqv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342422/original/file-20200617-94049-ki6uqv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342422/original/file-20200617-94049-ki6uqv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342422/original/file-20200617-94049-ki6uqv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342422/original/file-20200617-94049-ki6uqv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Hiring should be fairer.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/african-applicant-caucasian-hr-manager-sitting-1634081005">fizkes/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>We found that white experimental participants were ten times more likely to shortlist two white candidates for a lectureship post than two BAME candidates with exactly the same CV. We also found that white participants spent more time looking at good information on the CVs of white candidates and bad information on the CVs of BAME candidates. </p>
<h2>Combating implicit bias</h2>
<p>In other words, our “rational” decisions about the suitability of candidates are based on biased pattern of fixation. This is the reality of prejudice in action, working away below the level of consciousness. The practical implications are clear. We should never use “first thoughts” or “gut instincts” as a basis for shortlisting, and never conduct any shortlisting meetings under strict time pressure. The more time pressure, the more powerful the effects of these implicit processes will be.</p>
<p>A helpful tool may be “implementation intentions” – which are conscious plans to override unconscious instincts. This may be in the form of reminders such as: “If I see the application of a candidate from a BAME background then, if I am white, I should be careful to scrutinise the best sections of the application once again before I make my final decision.” It sounds clunky and unnatural, but it can work, blocking the effects of parts of the brain that want to jump to an immediate conclusion.</p>
<p>Recent task force recommendations <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30611895/">have spelt out other ways</a> of combating implicit bias – including committing to a culture shift, introducing bias literacy, encouraging mentoring and empowering individuals to recognise and overcome their own implicit biases.</p>
<p>But the implicit association test itself is not without its critics. A new study argues that we should focus not on the test, <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/342131465_Implicit_Bias_and_Anti-Discrimination_Policy">but on the actual psychological mechanisms</a> that can lead to implicit bias in actual discriminatory behaviour. For example, with multiple sources of information, there may be biased weighting of certain information over others, such as emphasis on experience versus education in assessing job applications, where this weighting may vary depending on the race of the candidate. We must also tackle biased interpretation – such as the perception of an object as a weapon when in the hands of a member of a particular racial group.</p>
<p>My colleagues and I have also argued that the implicit association test is not even genuinely implicit, because it hinges on explicit categorisation by race. Participants have to explicitly assign the facial images they see into the categories “black” or “white”, “bad or good” etc. </p>
<p>For this reason, we have just <a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2019-53088-001">developed a new race implicit association test</a> probing multiple attributes at once. Participants are asked to categorise images of black and white male and female individuals on the basis of either race (as before) or gender (also associating it with good or bad). This means that we can look at people’s racial biases when they believe they are sorting faces by gender. Again, reaction times are used to measure the associative connections.</p>
<p>We have found that there is still a race bias even in these tests, but the effect is reduced in size. This new test may have important diagnostic potential for the future.</p>
<p>We need a revolution in action – not just in rhetoric. New critical thinking about implicit processes could be powerful tools for identifying the hidden barriers to equality of opportunity. Maybe even the quiet harbinger of the real revolution is still to come.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/140816/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Geoff Beattie received funding from the Equality Challenge Unit to support the research into the effects of implicit bias on shortlisting. He also received funding with Dr Motonori Yamaguchi from Edge Hill University’s Research Investment Fund to investigate the role of explicit categorisation in the IAT. </span></em></p>
We need a revolution in behaviour, not just in rhetoric.
Geoff Beattie, Professor of Psychology, Edge Hill University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/127594
2019-12-19T13:50:55Z
2019-12-19T13:50:55Z
Nonprofits that empower leaders of color are more apt to do something about racial inequality
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/307280/original/file-20191216-123983-1dbnt8d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Nonprofit leaders aren't particularly diverse.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/group-people-1191437278">Djomas/Shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The U.S. is becoming more racially <a href="https://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2018/11/15/early-benchmarks-show-post-millennials-on-track-to-be-most-diverse-best-educated-generation-yet/">diverse</a>. Since 2010, <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/research/americas-racial-diversity-in-six-maps/">96%</a> of all U.S. counties registered an increase in their percentage of nonwhite residents. Yet the people who lead nonprofits in the U.S. remain disproportionately <a href="https://boardsource.org/news/2017/09/nonprofit-boards-still-not-diverse-report-finds/">white</a>.</p>
<p>This mismatch can make it difficult for such organizations to understand and address <a href="https://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2016/06/27/on-views-of-race-and-inequality-blacks-and-whites-are-worlds-apart/">racial inequality</a> in their community and throughout the country.</p>
<p>As a <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=xoHOiQYAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=sra">scholar of diversity</a>, I know most nonprofits want to become more racially diverse. However, many struggle to achieve this goal. </p>
<p>While <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0899764019839778">researchers</a>, <a href="https://cep.org/nonprofit-sectors-board-diversity-problem/">funders</a> and <a href="https://www.thenonprofittimes.com/npt_articles/nonprofit-boards-dont-resemble-rest-america/">community leaders</a> often highlight the dismal levels of racial diversity among nonprofit boards, an even greater disparity often goes overlooked. Not mentioned is the fact that <a href="https://pndblog.typepad.com/pndblog/2017/06/the-diversity-gap-in-the-nonprofit-sector.html">scarcely 10%</a> of nonprofit executive directors are people of color.</p>
<h2>Current realities</h2>
<p>A few major nonprofits are led by people of color, such as <a href="https://www.fordfoundation.org/about/people/darren-walker/">Darren Walker</a> the president of the <a href="https://www.fordfoundation.org/about/about-ford/our-origins/">Ford Foundation</a>, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/20-largest-us-endowments-and-foundations-2015-9#10-harvard-management-private-equity-corporation-10">one of the largest</a> foundations in the country, <a href="https://www.feedingamerica.org/about-us/press-room/claire-babineaux-fontenot-named-ceo-feeding-america">Claire Babineaux-Fontenot</a>, the CEO of <a href="https://foodwastealliance.org/spotlight-feeding-america-march-2016/">Feeding America</a>, the biggest U.S. group fighting hunger, and <a href="https://www.easterseals.com/who-we-are/leadership/new-easterseals-ceo-angela-williams.html">Angela Williams</a> the CEO of <a href="https://www.easterseals.com/who-we-are/history/">Easterseals</a>, a nonprofit that provides disability services. But these are exceptions among both large and smaller nonprofits.</p>
<p>What’s more, <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/9780203076804">research</a> suggests that this situation is likely to continue for years to come. </p>
<p>Community organizations, like neighborhood associations, food pantries and mentoring programs are places where every member of society can develop leadership skills, participate in civic life and influence public policy. The underrepresentation of leaders of color in such organizations can hinder efforts to <a href="https://www.racialequitytools.org/resourcefiles/race_power_policy_workbook.pdf">address racial inequality</a> and <a href="https://www.russellsage.org/publications/american-non-dilemma">racial tensions</a>.</p>
<p>One popular solution is to appoint more people of color to nonprofit boards. </p>
<p>Experts, like <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-most-nonprofit-boards-resemble-whiteboards-and-how-to-fix-that-89623">Kenneth Anderson Taylor</a>, a professor at Texas A&M University, say that if an organization’s board becomes diverse, it will do a better job of serving everyone and promoting racial equality. The logic is that because boards hire and fire executive directors, having more board members of color will result in nonprofits hiring more leaders of color. </p>
<p>To a degree, this theory has played out in terms of <a href="https://theconversation.com/male-nonprofit-ceos-earn-more-but-the-problem-runs-deeper-than-a-simple-gender-pay-gap-119068">gender balance</a> on nonprofit boards. However, the share of nonprofit executive directors from communities of color remains lower than the percentage of board members of color. </p>
<p>A major shortcoming of this proposed solution is that nonprofit board members’ levels of involvement and power within organizations varies substantially. Some are actively engaged in their organization’s day-to-day operations, while others play only a minimal role.</p>
<p>Nonprofit executive directors and other top staff members, in contrast, are much more likely than board members to have a direct impact on operations. They typically call the shots for all organizational activities, including strategic planning, recruiting and hiring and staff training.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/307282/original/file-20191216-123998-1b3eev7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/307282/original/file-20191216-123998-1b3eev7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/307282/original/file-20191216-123998-1b3eev7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=483&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/307282/original/file-20191216-123998-1b3eev7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=483&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/307282/original/file-20191216-123998-1b3eev7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=483&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/307282/original/file-20191216-123998-1b3eev7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=608&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/307282/original/file-20191216-123998-1b3eev7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=608&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/307282/original/file-20191216-123998-1b3eev7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=608&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Ford Foundation President Darren Walker, center, is one of the few people of color leading a big nonprofit.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Gordon-Parks-Selections-from-the-Dean-Collecti-/647d0bde52e04228af939b024861a50d/6/0">Mpi43/MediaPunch /IPX via AP</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The role of rank</h2>
<p>I teamed up with sociology researchers <a href="https://u.osu.edu/michelleoyakawa/">Michelle Oyakawa</a> and <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=fl3VnNAAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">Richard L. Wood</a> to analyze 41 predominantly white organizations and their leaders. These <a href="https://www.press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/S/bo21803891.html">organizations</a> seek to address local, state and national issues by organizing community members to help influence public policy.</p>
<p>We wanted see what led some of those organizations to prioritize addressing racial inequality within their organization and in their surrounding community.</p>
<p>Perhaps unsurprisingly, we found that people of color play an important role in helping such organizations advance racial equality. Our analysis indicated that, all else being equal, organizations with a leader of color were more likely to address racial issues internally and when shaping public policy. For example, leaders of color developed workshops to help white staff members better understand <a href="https://www.racialequitytools.org/resourcefiles/mcintosh.pdf">white privilege</a> and <a href="https://www.racialequitytools.org/fundamentals/core-concepts/structural-racism">structural racism</a>.</p>
<p>Also, when advocating for education reform, leaders of color helped policymakers to see the <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/articles/unequal-opportunity-race-and-education/">connections between education inequality and racial inequality</a>.</p>
<p>As we explained in the the journal <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/nml.21387">Nonprofit Management & Leadership</a>, what was crucial to these nonprofits addressing racial inequality was not just having leaders of color, but that the organizations empowered those leaders to help transform their organization.</p>
<p>While we found no significant impact related to having board members of color, we did find that staff of color play a significant role in helping predominantly white organizations address racial issues – both internally and externally. The leaders of color helped identify and address barriers that inhibited their organization from becoming more racially diverse. They also increased their organization’s capacity and credibility by brokering collaborations with organizations rooted in communities of color.</p>
<p>That is why we argue that assessing the racial composition of an organization’s staff is more helpful than checking out its board in terms of predicting whether it will promote inclusion and racial equality.</p>
<p>And while we believe that having board members of color is likely beneficial, we are confident that employing and empowering leaders of color is even better if a nonprofit is seeking to address racial issues in their own organization and community – as well as in society in general.</p>
<p>[ <em><a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=expertise">Expertise in your inbox. Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter and get a digest of academic takes on today’s news, every day.</a></em> ]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/127594/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Brad R. Fulton does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Leaders like Ford Foundation President Darren Walker are the exception.
Brad R. Fulton, Assistant Professor, O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs, Indiana University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/124977
2019-10-14T13:12:47Z
2019-10-14T13:12:47Z
Blind people have increased opportunities, but employers’ perceptions are still a barrier
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/296707/original/file-20191011-96226-ind0vz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=24%2C85%2C4050%2C2645&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A woman walking with a white cane, which has become a symbol of independence for people who are blind. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/blind-woman-walking-on-sidewalk-573873037?src=UPXa4aOHzYpYqrDF8bxvSQ-1-39">Akemaster/Shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Communities across the world observe <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2017/10/16/558067629/how-white-cane-day-makes-a-difference">White Cane Day</a> on Oct. 15 to recognize the contributions of people with <a href="https://www.afb.org/blindness-and-low-vision/eye-conditions/low-vision-and-legal-blindness-terms-and-descriptions">blindness and low vision</a> and to promote equal opportunities. The day was first observed in the U.S. in 1964, when <a href="https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/STATUTE-78/pdf/STATUTE-78-Pg1003.pdf#page=1">Congress passed a law</a> to increase awareness about the white cane’s role in promoting independent, safe travel for people with blindness or low vision.</p>
<p>More than <a href="https://factfinder.census.gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/productview.xhtml?pid=ACS_17_1YR_S1810&prodType=table">7.5 million Americans</a>, or 2.4% of the population, are blind or have low vision. Some people are born with blindness or low vision, but most people acquire vision loss, often at older ages. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1001/jamaophthalmol.2016.1284">Researchers estimate</a> that the incidence of blindness and low vision will rise rapidly through 2050 as the population ages.</p>
<p><a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=GP-LmJwAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">As researchers</a> <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=WpKc76YAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">who study</a> issues related to blindness and low vision, we are interested in how society, its institutions, businesses and individuals currently perceive members of this population and how these perceptions may influence opportunities, particularly in terms of employment.</p>
<h2>How the world has changed</h2>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/296719/original/file-20191011-96217-cfl004.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/296719/original/file-20191011-96217-cfl004.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296719/original/file-20191011-96217-cfl004.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296719/original/file-20191011-96217-cfl004.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296719/original/file-20191011-96217-cfl004.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296719/original/file-20191011-96217-cfl004.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296719/original/file-20191011-96217-cfl004.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Technological advances have led to devices, such as this Braille notetaker, that can help people who are blind in the classroom and at work.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Megan Bean/Mississippi State University</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Since passage of that law 55 years ago, the world we live in has changed drastically. Advances in technology have significantly changed our everyday lives, and much progress in accessibility and inclusivity has occurred. <a href="https://www.ada.gov/ada_intro.htm">Federal laws</a> that protect people with disabilities from employment discrimination have been passed, and many companies have since adopted <a href="https://disabilityin.org/">inclusive hiring practices</a>. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.loc.gov/nls/resources/blindness-and-vision-impairment/devices-aids/assistive-technology-products-information-access/">Assistive technology</a> such as screen readers and screen magnifiers improve access to information and jobs. <a href="https://www.cnet.com/news/for-people-with-disabilities-accessibility-techs-still-not-all-it-could-be/">Built-in accessibility features</a> in mainstream technologies are increasingly common. Accessible transportation options are continually evolving, including <a href="https://www.afb.org/aw/17/11/15386">ride-hailing services</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/10447318.2018.1561787">autonomous vehicles</a>.</p>
<p>These changes and innovations have increased opportunities and reduced some barriers for people who are blind or those who have low vision (for simplicity, we will use the term “blind” going forward). </p>
<h2>Ongoing employment challenges</h2>
<p>One thing that has not changed for many people who are blind is lack of access to the workforce. This is true for people with all types of disabilities, hence the celebration of <a href="https://www.dol.gov/odep/topics/ndeam/">National Disability Employment Awareness Month</a> in October. Our team of researchers at the <a href="https://www.blind.msstate.edu/">National Research and Training Center on Blindness and Low Vision</a> is addressing this issue for people who are blind.</p>
<p>The large disparities in employment rates that have historically existed for people who are blind still exist today. The <a href="https://factfinder.census.gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/productview.xhtml?pid=ACS_17_1YR_B18120&prodType=table">most recent data from the American Community Survey</a> indicates that 44.2% of people who are blind are employed and 10% are unemployed. This compares to an employment rate of 77.2% and unemployment rate of 4.8% for people without disabilities. </p>
<p>Why does employment continue to be a challenge for so many people who are blind? It may be that perceptions about the capabilities of the population have not changed.</p>
<h2>Employer perceptions about blind people</h2>
<p>One of the most common barriers to employment for people who are blind is negative employer attitudes. In several studies conducted between 2012 and 2017 with almost 1,000 employers, we measured employer attitudes and knowledge about how blind people can perform basic job functions. We included a measure of explicit (self-reported) attitudes toward individuals who are blind as employees and a <a href="https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/education.html">measure of implicit attitudes</a> about the competence of people who are blind. Implicit attitudes refer to subconscious beliefs or stereotypes that a person may hold but not be aware of and thus would be unable to report. </p>
<p>Our research with employers revealed the following:</p>
<ul>
<li><p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1177%2F0145482X1410800305">Employer knowledge is limited</a> about how people who are blind can perform basic job tasks.</p></li>
<li><p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1177%2F0034355216642598">Self-reported attitudes vary widely among employers</a>, from extremely negative to completely positive, but on average they fall in the middle, or neutral, range of our attitude measure.</p></li>
<li><p><a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/rep0000235">Implicit attitudes also vary</a>, but on average are strongly negative, indicating that employers tend to automatically associate competence with sighted people and incompetence with blind people.</p></li>
<li><p>Knowing how blind people can perform job tasks is related to more positive <a href="https://doi.org/10.3233/JVR-180933">self-reported</a> and <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/rep0000235">implicit attitudes</a>.</p></li>
<li><p>More positive self-reported employer attitudes are <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177%2F0145482X1811200207">associated with a greater likelihood of hiring someone who is blind</a>. </p></li>
</ul>
<p>Our results verify the importance of employer attitudes toward blind people because of the association between attitudes and hiring. We know that knowledge is associated with more positive employer attitudes, but that knowledge is lacking among employers, and presumably among society in general. One potential avenue to improve employer attitudes is through increasing knowledge about how people who are blind function on the job. Most employers likely assume that a blind person cannot perform many essential job functions when in reality this is incorrect. </p>
<p>People who are blind can perform most jobs that sighted people can. There are not “jobs for blind people,” rather, most occupations in the economy are available to this population, given appropriate accommodations. You might be surprised to learn that people who are blind work in a <a href="https://www.ntac.blind.msstate.edu/businesses/whatjobs/">variety of jobs</a>. </p>
<p>They are <a href="https://www.ntac.blind.msstate.edu/businesses/blindworkers/profiles/profiles.php?profile=downey">architects</a>, <a href="https://bramblitt.com/pages/about-us">artists</a>, <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/blind-auto-mechanic-feels-his-way-around/">auto mechanics</a>, <a href="https://twoblindbrothers.com/">fashion designers</a>, <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/01/20/facebook-matt-king-profile-blind-engineer-helping-image-recognition.html">engineers</a>, <a href="https://www.ntac.blind.msstate.edu/businesses/blindworkers/profiles/profiles.php?profile=vermeij">scientists</a>, <a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/id/7318398/ns/health-health_care/t/blind-medical-student-earns-md/#.XZ4JWUY3mUk">physicians</a> and <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/blind-judge-michigan_n_6386856">judges</a>. Many jobs previously unavailable to people who are blind are now accessible thanks to advances in technology. </p>
<h2>What people can do to open up opportunities</h2>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/296731/original/file-20191011-96208-mg1oqi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/296731/original/file-20191011-96208-mg1oqi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296731/original/file-20191011-96208-mg1oqi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296731/original/file-20191011-96208-mg1oqi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296731/original/file-20191011-96208-mg1oqi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296731/original/file-20191011-96208-mg1oqi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296731/original/file-20191011-96208-mg1oqi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Refreshable Braille displays are just one example of technological advances that have opened up job opportunities for people who are blind.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/blind-person-using-computer-braille-display-428299819?src=1kkJv5_qVSS10lFDU8WJcQ-1-46">Zlikovec/Shutterstock.com</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="https://uxpajournal.org/investigating-the-accessibility-and-usability-of-job-application-web-sites-for-blind-users/">Many employers have inaccessible job application sites</a>, and people who are blind have filed <a href="https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/legal-and-compliance/employment-law/pages/job-applicants-sue-companies-with-difficult-online-forms.aspx">lawsuits</a> regarding their inability to use a screen reader to access job-related information on websites. Giving this group of people equal access to learn about and apply for any job of interest is an important first step. Employers should make all digital information related to jobs accessible, including the application process. Accessibility is not difficult, and much <a href="https://www.w3.org/WAI/">support is available for this effort</a>. </p>
<p>In addition, employers and society in general should <a href="https://www.ntac.blind.msstate.edu/businesses/quiz/">learn about how people who are blind can perform tasks</a> for which sighted people rely on their vision. This is one of the best ways to change perceptions. Attending your local White Cane Day event is a great opportunity to learn about this population. Events such as this and National Disability Employment Awareness Month are important to increase awareness about the capabilities of people who are blind and the employment challenges they continue to face.</p>
<p>[ <em>You’re smart and curious about the world. So are The Conversation’s authors and editors.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=youresmart">You can read us daily by subscribing to our newsletter</a>. ]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/124977/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michele McDonnall receives funding from the National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research (grant #90RT5040). </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jennifer L. Cmar receives funding from the National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research (grant #90RT5040). </span></em></p>
People who are blind have made great strides in the workplace in the 55 years since the US first observed White Cane Day. Yet discrimination in employment still remains, two experts explain.
Michele McDonnall, Research Professor and Director, Mississippi State University
Jennifer L. Cmar, Assistant Research Professor, Mississippi State University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.