HSB4U Chapter 9
Prejudice and Discrimination
Systemic Discrimination
• Who, in our course so far, has
experienced it?
Perception
= the process by which objects, people, events,
and other aspects of our surroundings become
known to us
• Kenneth Boulding
– The Image: Knowledge in Life and Society,
1956
• The image = people don’t perceive things as they
exist in the real world; they respond to an image of
reality which differs from person to person
• Joel Barker, 1989
– paradigm: = set of rules and conditions stored
in the brain that a person uses to interpret and
understand sensory experiences
• Like a filter through which information is processed
by the brain to create an image
Implications
• What does all this information about
perception mean for our understanding of
prejudice and discrimination?
Standardized Intelligence
Quotient Test
• What is it?
• How is it an example of systemic
discrimination?
Sample Question
• Select the most different of the set of
items:
– Auto, turtle, basket, bird
Improvements?
• How could tests be made fairer?
– Culturally fair vs. culturally loaded?
What Do You See?
OPTICAL ILLUSIONS
Self-Esteem and the
Psychology of Race
• What effect does racism have on an
individual, especially a child?
– Black Like Me, textbook p. 256.
– The Clarks’ research used in the Brown v.
Board of Education case, 1950s
– Brantford study, textbook p. 295
– Joy Kogawa, Japanese-Canadian interned as
a child during WWII, A Choice of Dreams
(1974)
“And I prayed the God who loves
All the children in his sight
The Clarks’ Research and
Segregation
‘In their groundbreaking studies, Kenneth and Mamie Clark investigated black children's racial
identification and preference. Using drawings and dolls of black and white children, these researchers
asked Black preschool and elementary school children to indicate which drawing or doll they preferred
and which drawing or doll looked most like them. They also asked children to color line drawings of
children with the color that most closely matched their own skin color. The Clarks found that Black
children often preferred the white doll and drawing, and frequently colored the line drawing of the child
a shade lighter than their own skin. Samples of the children's responses illustrated that they viewed
white as good and pretty, but black as bad and ugly.
Clark and Clark concluded that many Black children at the time (1939-1950) "indicate a clear-cut
preference for white and some of them evidence emotional conflict when requested to indicate a color
preference. It is clear that the Negro child, by the age of five is aware of the fact that to be colored in
contemporary American society is a mark of inferior status. A child accepts as early as six, seven or
eight the negative stereotypes about his own group.“’
CNN replica experiment: http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/05/13/doll.study/
American Psychological Association. (2007, July). Research in psychology: Segregation ruled
unequal, therefore unconstitutional. Retrieved June 5, 2014 from
http://www.apa.org/research/action/segregation.aspx
Early Theories of Prejudice
• Use pages 297 to 300 to fill in the
information about All port and Adorno’s
theories of where prejudice comes from.
Application of Theories
• Can Adorno’s theory be used to explain
the prejudice in today’s four case studies?
If so, how?
• Is Allport’s theory more applicable than
Adorno’s? How – apply to case studies.
• What are the shared aspects of the
theories?
Aboud’s More Recent Theory
• Professor at McGill University
• Social-Cognitive Theory
– Incorporates the work of Piaget
and Kohlberg
Teaching Activities
Two Questions
• Has anyone ever made an incorrect assumption
about you based on preconceived ideas?
• If so, what effect did it have on you?
THREE CONCEPTS OF RACE
1. Race as a Scientific Concept
• Genetically humans are 99.9% the same as each other
(chimpanzees have more internal variation than us)
• A small number of genes (0.01%) relate to physical
appearance - they are thought to have developed as
adaptations to environment
–
skin colour, eye colour, nose width
• Differences in skin colour and physical appearance do
not translate to a whole range of other biological
differences that are unique to groups
Therefore:
Skin Colour As an Adaptation
• Adaptation to geography and sun’s
ultraviolet radiation (UVR)
– Dark skin is thought to protect us vs sun
damage
– Pigment also helps balance the body’s need
for vitamin D and folate (UVR strips away
folate)
– As people moved away from the equator,
natural selection favoured light skin
Counterintuitive Example
• Native peoples of Alaska and northern
Canada
– High UVR from reflection of sun on snow and
ice
– Dark skin protects them
– Slows vitamin D production but their
traditional diet of seal, walrus, fish (all rich in
vitamin D) compensates for this
2. Race as a Historical Concept
• In the past people inaccurately divided groups of
people according to colour: white, yellow, red,
brown, black
• Then they added geographical names:
Caucasian, Oriental, Indian, Indo-Pakistani
• These designations were used for many
negative purposes, such as justification of
– Imperialism, slavery, natural hierarchy, war, genocide,
inequality
• Therefore:
3. Race as a Social Concept
• Race is an arbitrary categorization in which humans
attach social meaning to physical differences
– Social meanings such as: education, intelligence, income.
• When we assign people to groups based on skin colour
or other physical features we lose information about
people’s individuality
• Race is a learned concept; it is a social, economic and
political construct
• However, it is important to many people who link it to
their culture, identity, heritage.
• Therefore:
Follow-Up Questions
• How do you identify yourself (e.g., if
you were asked to do so for the
Canadian census)?
• What does your identity mean to you?
How important is it to you?
Arbitrary Activities on
Human Variation
1. Group people according to short,
medium, tall.
– Then add more people. What happens to the
original categories?
2. One person gets 89. Another person gets
91. They are only 2 marks apart but the
person with the A (over 90) has a real
advantage for US college admission.
3. Skin colour groupings.
http://www.pbs.org/race/002_SortingPeop
Debrief of Sorting Activity
• What kinds of things did you notice
yourself:
– thinking
– saying
– not wanting to say
– feeling guilty or awkward about saying or
thinking
Unlearning prejudice
PARADIGM SHIFT
Robbers Cave Experiment
• Intergroup Conflict and Cooperation:
The Robbers Cave Experiment
– Muzafer Sherif, O. J. Harvey, B. Jack
White, William R. Hood, Carolyn W. Sherif
(1954/1961)
• http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Sherif/chap5.
htm
Aronson
• Jig Saw Learning
– Equal Status Social Contact
– Context: newly desegregated
schools in Austin, Texas
http://www.jigsaw.org/history.htm
A Letter from Carlos
Autumn, 1982
Dear Professor Aronson:
I am a senior at U.T. [University of Texas]. Today I got a letter admitting me to
the Harvard Law School. This may not seem odd to you, but let me tell you
something. I am the 6th of 7 children my parents had--and I am the only one
who ever went to college, let alone graduate, or go to law school.
By now, you are probably wondering why this stranger is writing to you and
bragging to you about his achievements. Actually, I'm not a stranger although
we never met. You see, last year I was taking a course in social psychology
and we were using a book you wrote, The Social Animal, and when I read
about prejudice and jigsaw it all sounded very familiar--and then, I realized that
I was in that very first class you ever did jigsaw in--when I was in the 5th grade.
And as I read on, it dawned on me that I was the boy that you called Carlos.
And then I remembered you when you first came to our classroom and how I
was scared and how I hated school and how I was so stupid and didn't know
anything. And you came in--it all came back to me when I read your book--you
were very tall--about 6 1/2 feet--and you had a big black beard and you were
funny and made us all laugh.
And, most important, when we started to do work in jigsaw groups, I began to
realize that I wasn't really that stupid. And the kids I thought were cruel and
hostile became my friends and the teacher acted friendly and nice to me and I
actually began to love school, and I began to love to learn things and now I'm
about to go to Harvard Law School.
You must get a lot of letters like this but I decided to write anyway because let
me tell you something. My mother tells me that when I was born I almost died. I
was born at home and the cord was wrapped around my neck and the midwife
gave me mouth to mouth and saved my life. If she was still alive, I would write
to her too, to tell her that I grew up smart and good and I'm going to law school.
But she died a few years ago. I'm writing to you because, no less than her, you
saved my life too.
Sincerely,
Carlos
http://www.jigsaw.org/carlos.htm
Anti-Prejudice Education
Anti-racism
Multiculturalism
Multiculturalism
• Preserves __________ while sharing
being Canadian
• Pride
• Prejudice can be reduced by _______
programs
• Promotes understanding of __________s
• It is only informational because
Anti-Racism
• Reduces _________ and removes
______________
• Aboud’s program in BC with grade 5
students creates ______________s
between them
• Institutional barriers are
• Culture-fair testing is emphasized by
• Creates paradigm shifts by
New MC or AR statements
• Addressing prejudices through education
• Allowing people to wear religious
headwear in school
• Having a literacy class instead of
standardized test
• Incorporating elementary school diversity
programs.
Invisible White Privilege
Knapsack