Lesson Plan on Stereotypes, Prejudice, and Discrimination
Planned Dates of Classes: Wednesday, September 27th and Monday, October 2nd
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OBJECTIVE AND GOALS
Broad Objective:
Promote critical thinking about how humans form stereotypes, prejudices, and behaviors of discrimination
Learning Goals:
- Students will understand the definitions of stereotypes, prejudice, and discrimination, and the theories of social psychology related to them (including implicit bias, in-group/out-group biases, minimal group paradigm, in-group favoritism).
- Students will be able to articulate how these concepts and related theories are related and relevant to everyday life.
- Students will demonstrate an ability to work in groups to develop a venn diagram and an ability to interpret graphs and tables.
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QUESTIONS OF THE LESSON
Questions of the Day:
Upon entering the class, students will be given the following questions as a prompt to think about the readings and introduce the forthcoming material. Students will be asked to to be written on a piece of paper on the first day of this lesson and handed in to count for attendance/participation):
- What does “Don’t judge a book by its cover” mean?
- Can you think of a time that someone made a judgment about someone else based on limited information?
- What conditions can lead people to make biased judgments about others?
- What is the difference between stereotypes, prejudice, and discrimination?
- How can we prevent making biased judgments about others?
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LESSON PLAN AGENDA
Q1: Think-about-it: “Don’t judge a book by its cover”
Think-Pair-Share: What does ‘Don’t judge a book by its cover’ mean to you?
Q2: Judgements based off of limited information: Interpreting Our IAT Results
Prior to class:
Along with the reading, students will be assigned to complete the Gender-Science IAT online and complete a Blackboard survey that will ask them the following questions: (1) Prior to taking the Gender-Science IAT, did you think you had an implicit bias toward a women in liberal arts and men in the sciences?; (2) What were your IAT results, and what were your reaction to your results?; (3) Do you believe your results were accurate (why or why not)?; (4) Do you think the rest of the class will have similar results? They will be told that their responses will be anonymous.
Discussion during class:
SLIDES —
- Beliefs prior to the IAT (slide showing a pie chart between students who did v.s. didn’t think they had implicit biases prior to taking the IAT – students will be asked to interpret the pie chart)
- IAT results (slide showing a bar graph of the different IAT results – students will be asked to interpret the bar graph)
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS —
- It appears some people have biases and are aware of them, while other have biases but are unaware of them. What might be the consequences of having an implicit bias?
- Do you believe the IAT is a good measure of testing implicit bias?
- Now you know the results of the class. What are your reactions? What can we do to change our implicit biases?
Q3: Conditions that can lead people to make biased judgement: In-Group/Out-Group Biases Activity (Mini Lesson)
Materials Needed:
Paper and markers
‘Resource’ (we used candy, but stickers or tokens would also do)
Activity:
- Break class up into two countries (e.g., Country A and Country B). Must be randomly assigned.
- Tell each country that they have to design a country flag. Allot about 15 minutes for the flag design.
- While students are making the flag, give each student a ‘resources.’
- Once students have made their flags, give the following instructions: “We will now engage in a resource game. The rules are as follows: In order to win, you must have the most resources, but everyone must give away their resource.”
- Allow time to distribute resources.
Follow Up Discussion on In-Group/Out-Group Biases and Social Identity Theory
SLIDES —
- Ingroups vs. Outgroups
- Henri Tajfel’s Minimal Group Paradigm (1971)
- Ingroup Favoritism
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS —
- How many of you gave your resource to someone from your “Country”? How many of you gave your resources to someone from another “Country”?
- Write these on the board or make a bar graph
- Ask students to interpret the bar graph
- Think-Pair-Share:
- How did you chose who to give your resource to?
- Now reflect on the types of in-group/out-group biases that exist in the ‘real world.’ What are some groups that naturally occur (an example is a racial/ethnic group, like Latinos)?
- According to the minimal group paradigm, people tend to group even when there are arbitrarily similar. What happens as the similarities extend to encompass more meaningful similarities (again, like racial/ethnic groups)?
References:
Kassin, S. M., Fein, S., & Markus, H. R. (2016). Social Psychology. Boston, MA. Cengage Learning.
Tajfel, H., Billig, M. G., Bundy, R. P., & Flament, C. (1971). Social categorization and intergroup behavior. 149-178.
Q4: Understanding the difference between stereotypes, prejudice, and discrimination: Venn Diagram activity
Activity:
- Students will break off into their Teaching Presentations groups and will be asked to create a venn-diagram of these three concepts (see below for an example). Student will work independently in groups for 15-20 minutes.
- At the end of the work period, one student from each group will be asked to create the venn diagram on the board.
- When all venn diagrams have been drawn, similarities will be noted and a final venn diagram will be created.
Q5: Think-about-it: Prevent making biased judgments about others
Think-Pair-Share: Now that we’ve learned about stereotypes, biases, and discrimination, what can we do to prevent making biased judgements about others?
