Fighting racism: Teaching kids to identify individual black people can reduce racial bias

[Madam45for2923]

Fighting racism: Teaching kids to identify individual black people can reduce racial bias
Date:
October 12, 2017
Source:
University of Toronto
Summary:
Many times, those who hold racially biased views of other people see them as all the same. Instead of thinking of them as specific individuals, they lump them into a group -- seeing them as 'those people.' Now an international team of researchers suggests one way to reduce racial bias in kids is by teaching them to identify individual faces of those of other races.


The study, published on Oct. 12, in the journal Child Development is the first to show a lasting effect -- and in kids young enough to not be too set in their ways.

Co-authored by researchers from the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE) at the University of Toronto and their international colleagues, the study's two 20-minute sessions with 4- to 6-year-old Chinese children, in which they played with a touch-screen app to distinguish individual black faces, significantly reduced their implicit anti-black bias. This bias reduction lasted for at least two months.

Seeing others as individuals

"There are two key findings here," said Dr. Lee. "First, using our app, young children can quickly learn to recognize people from a particular race other than their own, which is an important social skill for children living in the globalized environment. Second and more importantly, an added benefit of learning to identify people from another race as individuals is the reduction of their implicit racial bias against that race."

"For parents and teachers, this means if you introduce children to those of another race frequently, teaching them about who they are as individuals, the implicit bias children hold against the people of that race will decrease," he continued, noting that teaching kids about Martin Luther King Jr., Nelson Mandela and Barack Obama is one example of how adults can reduce implicit anti-black bias in non-black children.

Gail Heyman, a professor of psychology in the UC San Diego Division of Social Sciences and a senior co-author on the study, echoed Dr. Lee, emphasizing that in the study, the key to reducing the bias was the repeat session.

"A single session had minimal immediate effects that dissipated quickly. The lesson didn't stick. But a second session a week later seemed to act like a booster shot, producing measurable differences in implicit bias 60 days later," she said.

Timing is critical: Intervene before bias is 'entrenched'

Read more: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/10/171012163955.htm

[chowder66]

1. I agree wholeheartedly.

In 5th grade they bussed in kids from other schools
the majority of who were black. It was a big day and I was excited about new kids arriving. I greeted them at the end of the steps and handicapped ramp that led down to the paved schoolyard. I was as curious as they come so any new kid was the possibility of an adventure to be explored as friends. I saw color, lots of it and it was just as great as anything that has variation.

At that time our school was more than 80% black, maybe even higher. I found an old newspaper article about it on newspapers.com. It was a very good school, before, during and after I was there.

My favorite teachers were two black women. I still think about them. One of them was my absolute favorite just because I got her again in 6th grade which was rare. She had picked up another class. Unfortunately about 8 years ago, I learned she passed from cancer which broke my heart. She was as lovely as they come both in physical appearance and spirit. I miss knowing her.

We also had an array of kids who had red hair or had albinism - both black and white kids. There were handicapped kids, developmentally challenged kids and kids with horrible burn scars - too many. There were hispanic kids and one or two asian kids. It was wonderful to be exposed to all kinds of little people being a little person myself at the time.

There was one kid I thought was a miniature Sidney Poitier. He was the best dressed kid I have ever seen in school anywhere. He was shy but I got him to talk and come out of his a shell, it was a lot of work but patience prevailed. Sometimes he was picked on because of his clothes or because he had very dark skin. Mostly the taunts came from his own race. I don't know if his parents were rich or not but he was treated differently because of it. He could handle it on his own but I was there defending him with a few others when something would happen if front of us. Things did eventually settle down for him.

There was one of my first crushes, he was adorable and we played basketball together - it was just us putting the ball in the basket. He was helping me play. I got a little better. He was so cute and nice.

Then there was my best male school friend. He was hilarious and was the first one who came to my aid when I broke my ankle playing tag with him and a couple of other kids. I think he had a crush on me. His cousin didn't like me for a long time. She liked to call me names and glared at me with the intensity of a thousand burning suns. She relented after a year probably due to the fact that I had zero issues with any of the kids and Tony never swayed in our friendship. My two best female friends were the best of friends with one another and brought me into their midst. We created dances together. They were very tall and confident but best of all they were a blast!

My teacher assigned me to study with the disabled and shy kids because I interacted with them as I did any other kid. One of my friends was in a horrible grease fire that left giant blisters on her arm. At the time they couldn't be treated. I can't remember why that was. I think it had to do with scarring and the possibility of infection. I wonder if she was able to do something later. She was painfully shy but blossomed with several friendships and the aid of our teachers. The kids with albinism were also deeply shy but eventually flourished and nearly every kid in that school interacted with the others. It was a pretty big happy family. One of my white friends became an actor and I ran into him 25 years later here in Los Angeles. He had fond memories of our grade school days as well as others that I ran into over the years.

I stayed in touch with those teachers into my second year in college.
My favorite teacher may not understand the influence she had on my life at that time. It was profound and it's why I still miss her.

I stayed in touch with just a handful of the kids after grade school. Those relationships drifted completely apart as we got interested in dating and our neighborhood activities.
Many of us went to different schools afterwards. Most of us simply drifted towards our own "tribes" separating ourselves from one another. I don't think it was a conscience decision. It was based on circumstance, distance, accessibility, etc.

I often wonder about a lot of these people and have only found one of them who I'm in touch with again. She and her family were the only black family that ever lived in our neighborhood. Her mom went into hospice a couple of years ago and I found out about it and contacted them. We've been in touch ever since.

Every kid should go to grade school that is mixed and personally I think that should continue through junior high and high school. Hopefully it would lead to more and more mixed workplaces and neighborhoods one day. I've always wished for more diversity everywhere and feel a lot of emotion when it's apparent that it isn't happening or happening fast enough. One day...I hope.

[eppur_se_muova]

2. Some of the impetus for this study may have come from research in facial recognition algorithms ...

it turns out the most effective methods for recognizing faces are different for different races. If you don't have practice in recognizing individuals of other races, they don't really "all look alike", but they do look different in ways you haven't (yet) learned to distinguish.

Neural nets which use adaptive learning to distinguish faces learned to look for the outline of the face, including the hairline, to recognize white men, but relied on the position and shape of the ears more to distinguish faces of black men. (Don't think they had gotten around to women yet, at least AFAIK).

Shocking revelation -- different people look different. We learn this without knowing we learn it, unless we don't have the opportunity to learn it. Then we're puzzled by others' ability to recognize differences that are invisible to use.