Implicit Bias: A Quick Educator’s Guide
If you are reading this, you hold implicit biases. We all do. It is easy to make a decision about a person without having all of the facts. Many professions have tried to rectify the legacy of historical discrimination through the creation of policies, rules, and guidelines. In Maryland’s Rules of Professional Responsible Conduct, there is a section that outlines the ideals of the attorney profession. Section three of Appendix 19-B states that “An attorney should aspire…to avoid all forms of wrongful discrimination in all of his or her activities, including discrimination on the basis of race, sex, gender, religion, national origin, ethnicity, disability, age, sexual orientation, marital status, socioeconomic status, or political affiliation, with equality and fairness as the goals.” While encouraging the importance of avoiding discrimination, this section does not address implicit biases individuals carry.
Implicit bias refers to the automatic and unconscious stereotypes that drive people to behave and make decisions in certain ways.[1] Implicit bias is one of the ways we determine how we interact with each other. According to the Racial Equity Institute, “developing an understanding of the power of implicit bias enables us to develop practices to minimize the impact of our unconscious tendencies to categorize, generalize, stereotype and discriminate”.[2] Essentially, when we gain awareness of our implicit biases we have the choice to decide whether we will allow stereotypes to determine how we interact with one another. We can choose to do better.
Looking at the landscape of implicit bias, whether in the legal system or education system, it is clear that there are groups of people who experience unequal treatment. We have seen what happens when implicit and explicit biases are acted upon year after year after year. Within the education world, there have been countless studies conducted on implicit bias. According to the Yale Child Study Center, preschool teachers and staff demonstrated signs of implicit bias in administering discipline.[3] Black preschoolers are 3.6 times as likely to receive one or more suspensions relative to White preschoolers.[4] When students are out of school, they miss out on significant learning opportunities. This gap in education contributes to school disengagement which can trigger the school-to-prison pipeline. Addressing the disparate impact of implicit bias is necessary, especially as it adversely impacts communities of color.
The Data
According to the Racial Equity Institute, implicit bias reflects both human nature (“fight or flight”), our socialization, and lives deep within our brains.[5] The American Bar Association explains that “understanding implicit bias and ways to debias one’s approach to law-related issues and decisions is critical to a fair and representative perception and reality of access to justice and equity.”[6]
This aspirational approach to law is equally important to those engaging with students. It is important for educators to recognize and address implicit bias when working with children of color, to help reduce the likelihood of these students receiving disproportionate treatment in school disciplinary actions. Black children represent 18% of preschool enrollment, and yet represent 48% of preschool children receiving out-of-school suspensions.[7] In Kindergarten, students that are considered American Indian, Native-Hawaiian, Pacific Islander, or Native-Alaskan are held back at nearly twice the rate of white kindergarten students.[8] Boys in this ethnic group represent 61% of kindergarteners retained.[9] These data points are just a few examples of the serious consequences that implicit bias carries toward the disproportionate treatment on students of color.
“We naturally assign people into various social categories divided by salient and chronically accessible traits, such as age, gender, race, and role. And just as we might have implicit cognitions that help us walk and drive, we have implicit social cognitions that guide our thinking about social categories. These schemas come from our experiences with other people, some of them direct (i.e., real-world encounters), but most of them vicarious (i.e., relayed to us through stories, books, movies, media, and culture).”[10] When educators use information from their personal experiences to influence their discretion to implement a disciplinary action, that decision can and does adversely impact students of color.
Studies have examined the adultification of black girls. Adultification leads to disciplining black girls more severely in comparison to their counterparts and projecting negative stereotypes such as being angry or promiscuous. There are existing reports that illustrate how labeling black boys as thugs, menacing, and dangerous can be treacherous on their development. In essence, dehumanizing black children. This goes beyond academia and research. In practice there have been countless examples where excessive force has been used on children. Children as young as 6-years old, 10-years-old, and many more. When students of color, in particular black students are disproportionately disciplined their ability to further their educational opportunities become severely hindered.
What can be done?
Fortunately, there exist opportunities for educators to address implicit bias. This can be done through trainings on cultural proficiency, behavioral and classroom management, and trauma-informed care.
Additionally, there are six ways to recognize and mitigate personal bias educators can deploy. This includes the following:
1. Recognize that you have bias.
2. Develop the capacity to use a flashlight on yourself.
3. Get feedback.
4. Explore awkwardness and discomfort.
5. Engage with people you consider “other” and expose yourself to positive role models in that group.
6. Develop and practice “constructive uncertainty”
Source: Unconscious Bias Workbook, Cook Ross Inc. (2016)
Knowing that our experiences shape our perceptions and interactions with students, it is important for educators to recognize their implicit biases and address them in a way to stem the flow of students’ interaction with the school-to-prison pipeline.
Footnotes
[1]Gilliam, WS et al., “Do early educators’ implicit biases regarding sex and race relate to behavior expectations and recommendations of preschool expulsions and suspensions?”, Yale University Child Study Center (2016), retrieved from: https://news.yale.edu/2016/09/27/implicit-bias-may-explain-high-preschool-expulsion-rates-black-children.
[2] Racial Equity Institute, Racial Equity Phase 1 Workshop: Foundations in Historical and Institutional Racism (May 27, 2018).
[3] Hathaway, Bill. Implicit Bias may help explain high preschool expulsion rates for black children, Yale News (September 27, 2016), retrieved from: https://news.yale.edu/2016/09/27/implicit-bias-may-explain-high-preschool-expulsion-rates-black-children.
[4]Gilliam, WS et al., “Do early educators’ implicit biases regarding sex and race relate to behavior expectations and recommendations of preschool expulsions and suspensions?”, Yale University Child Study Center (2016), retrieved from Retrieved from: https://medicine.yale.edu/childstudy/zigler/publications/Preschool%20Implicit%20Bias%20Policy%20Brief_final_9_26_276766_5379_v1.pdf
[5] Racial Equity Institute, Racial Equity Phase 1 Workshop: Foundations in Historical and Institutional Racism (May 27, 2018).
[6] American Bar Association, What Is Implicit or Unconscious Bias?, retrieved from:https://www.americanbar.org/groups/litigation/initiatives/task-force-implicit-bias/what-is-implicit-bias/
[7] U.S. Department of Education Office of Civil Rights, Civil Rights Data Collection Data Snapshot: Early Childhood Education
(March 2014), https://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/docs/crdc-early-learning-snapshot.pdf
[8] Id.
[9] Id.
[10]Kang, Jerry. Implicit Bias: A Primer for Courts, prepared for the National Campaign to Ensure the Racial and Ethnic Fairness of America’s State Courts, Aug. 2009, retrieved from: https://www.ncsc.org/__data/assets/pdf_file/0025/14875/kangibprimer.pdf.