I’m not sure how many of you tuned in to the first Presidential and Vice Presidential debates of the season, but if you did, you may have heard the words “implicit bias” surface during each. While the time spent on this topic was disappointingly brief, the fact that it was raised on such a national platform and was brought to the attention of approximately 84 million viewers across the nation feels like progress in the right direction.
During a discussion about healing race relations, Hillary Clinton shared, “I think implicit bias is a problem for everyone, not just police… Too many of us jump to conclusions about each other… We need all of us to be asking hard questions about why am I feeling this way…”
Recent research out of the Yale Child Study Center supports Clinton’s statement that implicit bias is a problem for everyone. We have had engaging conversations and trainings here at Seneca about how implicit bias affects the education system and our students – and as an early childhood educator – I was intrigued by a story on NPR last week that highlighted this research out of Yale in a segment titled: Bias isn’t Just a Police Problem, it’s a Preschool Problem.
During a discussion about healing race relations, Hillary Clinton shared, “I think implicit bias is a problem for everyone, not just police… Too many of us jump to conclusions about each other… We need all of us to be asking hard questions about why am I feeling this way…”
Recent research out of the Yale Child Study Center supports Clinton’s statement that implicit bias is a problem for everyone. We have had engaging conversations and trainings here at Seneca about how implicit bias affects the education system and our students – and as an early childhood educator – I was intrigued by a story on NPR last week that highlighted this research out of Yale in a segment titled: Bias isn’t Just a Police Problem, it’s a Preschool Problem.
This was a fascinating study conducted with early childhood educators who were asked to watch videos of preschool children in the classroom setting and be prepared to signal when the first signs of behavioral challenges occurred. The trick was that none of the children in the videos displayed behavioral challenges, and the researchers were actually tracking the eye movements of the educators to better understand where they were looking.
"What we found was exactly what we expected based on the rates at which children are expelled from preschool programs," the researcher reported. "Teachers looked more at the black children than the white children, and they looked specifically more at the African-American boy." This study demonstrates just one way in which implicit bias deeply affects students of color. It is common sense that "If you look for something in one place, that's the only place you can typically find it."
"What we found was exactly what we expected based on the rates at which children are expelled from preschool programs," the researcher reported. "Teachers looked more at the black children than the white children, and they looked specifically more at the African-American boy." This study demonstrates just one way in which implicit bias deeply affects students of color. It is common sense that "If you look for something in one place, that's the only place you can typically find it."
And while implicit bias is just one piece of the comprehensive set of factors that influence racial injustice and systematic oppression, it is an important one to talk about. As Tim Kaine said during the Vice Presidential debate, “People shouldn’t be afraid of bringing up implicit biases in law enforcement, and if you’re afraid to bring up the problem, you’ll never solve it.”
If you’d like to explore this topic further I encourage you to visit the Project Implicit website, developed in collaboration by researchers studying this topic in universities across the nation. The website provides a variety of implicit bias tests that you can take yourself if you’re interested!
If you’d like to explore this topic further I encourage you to visit the Project Implicit website, developed in collaboration by researchers studying this topic in universities across the nation. The website provides a variety of implicit bias tests that you can take yourself if you’re interested!
Blog posted by:
Jenny Ventura, Director of Model Implementation and Assessment
Jenny Ventura, Director of Model Implementation and Assessment
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