Being Inclusive in a Society
Every person is different naturally. While some of those differences are visible, others are not that obvious. For example, our race/ethnicity (most of the time), sex, and approximate age can be guessed, but our biases and family cultures or genders cannot. In other words, every single person is different somehow in a society, but how much we aware of that? and how much we aware of ourselves?
The book ‘Hidden Brain’ explains conscious and unconscious minds very well in my understanding from the article called “How ‘The Hidden Brain’ Does The Thinking For Us“. As he said, all of us have some sorts of biases about certain issues, and some of those are conscious while the rest are unconscious. For example, when we raise children, our unconscious biases are much more influential, and these affect children more than our conscious minds sometimes together with our own culture which we live in. Because our unconscious mind determines our own self, according to the book. Personally, I am not sure if I agree with that.
Last week, I completed one of the “implicit bias tests”, and the result was totally different than my conscious biases. Even it was different than my lifestyle. On the other hand, it was on the same page with my culture which I born in. While my behaviors are totally different than the result, how can I tell that “this is my real self, my real mind”? If I would really think similar to the result, there should be some crumbs in my life or in my mind.
March 12, 2018 @ 6:19 pm
I love your questions – how much are we aware of others and ourselves? This weeks topics have really inspired deeper thought and it is most interesting because it is hard to really uncover how we may be biased on a variety of topics in order to be effective educators and to include all in the process.
March 13, 2018 @ 4:03 pm
I had a similar response when I took the hidden bias test for the first time. I didn’t think the results reflected how I thought about a subject or how I acted around it. My results also lined up up with the culture I was raised in. At the same time, I think it can be really useful to make ourselves aware of those biases we may not realize, especially since they are so influential over our behavior. If we can realize what’s going on subconsciously, maybe we could make a conscious effort to work around it.
March 13, 2018 @ 7:16 pm
I also find the results of the hidden bias tests sobering. And I think that’s the point of hidden biases — if we could see them in ourselves they wouldn’t be hidden. Although I’ve been surprised by some of the results I’ve received from those tests (I’ve had lots of chances to take them ;-)), I will say that just having those results has given me some perspective and made me more aware of when those hidden biases might be at work.
March 13, 2018 @ 8:55 pm
I like the questions you pose Sevda. I think that because our upbringing and habits of the society that we live in are so ingrained, Shankar Vedantam states that it governs our “self”, however we have much more complex cognitive structures and I think that you find the bias test and your behavior different because of these higher cognitive structures. When we are conscientious, we employ that complex thinking and as a result have the ability to alter our ingrained responses.
March 14, 2018 @ 5:57 pm
Thank you for your post. I also did the bias test and the result was not I was expected too. If the result is reliable,the question you posed here is what we should think about. Another thought i had was that as an educator, I’m concerned about the fact that “all of us have some sorts of biases about certain issues, and some of those are conscious while the rest are unconscious.” That’s an obvious factor due to different backgrounds we have such as cultures, nations or socio-economic status: I’m wondering how we could utilize those diverse lenses we have in educational setting to maximize the benefits of diversity, if we can not avoid it.