Exploring Personal Bias,

Attitudes & Beliefs

Professor: Andrea Hernandez
 Week 1 Agenda
• Welcome! Review Course
Outline
• About this course
• Community Guidelines
• Understanding Personal Bias,
Attitudes and Beliefs
• What are we doing on
Fridays???
• Coming up in week 3…
About this
course
Answer the following…

• What topics do you think we will cover in this

course ?

• Why do you think that is an important topic to

cover for CYC Practice?
About this course…

• This 7 week course will go QUICKLY!

• You are being given most Fridays to work on the SYEE training
and/or to work with your group on Sexual Education Workshops
• You will need to stay organized!
• Keep up with materials as much as possible
• Test on May 28th
• Reflection on Learning due Sunday, June 7th (***Extensions cannot be
provided for this assignment due to it being due at the very end of the
term!***)
How this class will run:

• Weekly online modules – you will complete tasks independently

• Some weeks have readings, some have interactive videos
• Please review everything posted online and make sure to complete the activities –
all content is important for the quiz, reflection paper and workshops
• Each Wednesday there will be a lecture. You are strongly encouraged
to attend, listen and participate as you can in the live classes
• All live classes will be held during your scheduled class time – assume class starts
at 9am unless you are told otherwise
• Most Fridays you will be given time to work independently or with your
Workshop Group (more to come on this!)
Review
Course
Outline
Challenges?

• Many people will be at home

during the class, what are some
of the challenges that people may
experience taking a class that
covers a range of sexuality topics?

• What are some tips or things folks

can do if they face any of these
challenges?
 Tools for success (1/3):

• Be kind to one another, and to

yourselves
• Try to support each other in
being successful
• Have a little love in your heart
• Show compassion
 Tools for success (2/3):

• Be prepared and do the best that you can

• Remember, our thoughts and feelings about sex, relationships,
marriage, dating, gender have been a part of our
upbringing/environment/media and we know only what we know.
So let’s assume that everyone is coming here with an open heart
and an open mind, and a willingness to learn.
• Ask lots of questions, but from a place of curiosity – not
judgement
• If you hurt someone, own it, apologize and listen to what that
person is saying – use it as an opportunity to learn.
Tools for success (3/3):

• ENGAGE WITH YOURSELF IN CRITICAL SELF-

REFLECTION –Ask yourself at every nexus of what you
believe and what you are learning…why do I think the
way I think? Why am I holding on these beliefs? Do I need
to dive deeper?
• Understand the role that intersectionality plays in sex,
relationships, gender, marriage.
• Think about everything through the lens of race, gender, ability,
class; and how aspects of your (or someone’s) identity
influences and impacts their relationship and engagement
and experience of the topics covered in this course.
• For goodness sake, have a little fun!
Community Guidelines:

• What would help us create an environment

that is ideal for learning and growth?
• What do you expect of yourself in this course?
• What do you expect from others in the room?
• What do you expect from me?

• I will post our completed guidelines under the

“Community Guidelines” tab
How was
sex/sexuality
addressed in
your household
growing up?
 Implicit Bias

• An unconscious belief about

a group of people

• Unconscious attitudes and

stereotypes that can
manifest in the criminal
justice system, workplace,
school setting, and in the
healthcare system
 Implicit Bias (cont’d)

• Automatic association people make between groups of

people and stereotypes about those groups
• Under certain conditions, those automatic associations
can influence behavior—making people respond in
biased ways even when they are not explicitly prejudiced.
• More than thirty years of research in neurology and
social and cognitive psychology has shown that people
hold implicit biases even in the absence of heartfelt
bigotry, simply by paying attention to the social world
around them.
 What children learn from their parents, family
members, caregivers and teachers lasts a
lifetime. From an early age and throughout
their childhood, children learn from the adults
who are central to their everyday lives.

HOW WE
LEARN
The values, principles and learning
opportunities that are conveyed through
modeling, exposure and action are critical
 PREJUDICE AND BIAS
• How do we learn prejudice?
• Social scientists believe children begin to acquire prejudices and stereotypes as toddlers.
Many studies have shown that as early as age 3, children pick up terms of racial
prejudice without really understanding their significance.
• How are our biases reinforced?
• Once learned, stereotypes and prejudices resist change, even when evidence fails to
support them or points to the contrary.
• People will embrace anecdotes that reinforce their biases, but disregard experience
that contradicts them. The statement "Some of my best friends are " captures this
tendency to allow some exceptions without changing our bias.
• How do we perpetuate bias?
• Bias is perpetuated by conformity with in-group attitudes and socialization by the
culture at large.
BEHAVIOUR AND IMPACT
• About Hidden Bias:
• Scientific research has demonstrated that biases thought to be
absent or extinguished remain as "mental residue" in most of us.
Studies show people can be consciously committed to equity, justice
and deliberately work to behave without prejudice, yet still possess
hidden negative prejudices or stereotypes.

• Biases and behavior:

• A growing number of studies show a link between hidden biases
and actual behavior. In other words, hidden biases can reveal
themselves in action, especially when a person's efforts to control
behavior consciously flags under stress, distraction, relaxation or
competition.
BEHAVIOUR AND IMPACT (cont’d)
Leading to discrimination?
There is growing evidence, according to social scientists,
that hidden biases are related to discriminatory behavior
in a wide range of human interactions, from hiring and
promotions to choices of housing and schools, grading
students, making decisions about how to respond to
young people

What does this mean for your work as a CYC?

What might
be
considered
examples
of implicit
bias?
Is implicit bias the
answer?
• It is always important to
interrogate and ask questions
about things we are learning!

• What are some potential issues

with the idea of implicit bias?
 Bias – implicit or
otherwise and our
personal beliefs can
impact how we work
with children, young
people, families and
colleagues.
Scenario #1
Scenario #1

• Teachers at a local school experienced heavy workloads with

increasingly high-demands in the classroom, making them more
vulnerable to the influence of their implicit associations between
racialized youth and lower academic expectations.
• To illustrate, Mr. J., an English teacher, explicitly expressed the
idea that all of his students could succeed; however, he
unconsciously held lower expectations for his students of color.
Real world implications

• Operating outside of his conscious awareness, this implicit bias

affected his behavior when he neglected to give Janae, one of his
black students, corrective feedback when making mistakes on her
writing samples.
• Though Janae received a grade like the rest of her classmates, her
misspellings and punctuation errors were never circled on her paper,
a common practice that Mr. J. would use for other students.
• This teaching difference made the more challenging writing prompts
given later in the semester more difficult for Janae than for her White
counterparts, and did not allow her to reach her full potential in
writing
Scenario #2
Scenario #2

• Early in the evening of November 16th, Janae’s high school was tagged
with graffiti. The administrators arrived the next morning and were
shocked to find a large “P” in elaborate bubble letters sprayed on a wall
near the front entrance to the building.
• The administrators associated this act with gang activity. In response, the
principal, Mrs. Jennifer Jones called in all of the high school students for
questioning in front of the police. Three rounds of interviews were
conducted.
Scenario #2 (cont’d)

• Those believed to be innocent were released back to

class; those who the administration deemed suspicious
remained for further questioning.

• A white student, Brittany, came in for questioning and

stated she was home watching TV with her family all
night. The officer and principal believed her statement
and dismissed her after the first round of questioning.
Scenario #2 (cont’d)

• Janae came in for questioning and stated she was at home

cooking dinner for her family during the time when the
vandalism occurred. Janae was subsequently selected for a
second and third round of questioning to determine whether she
was guilty.

• Due to her previous exposure to negative comments about the

youth in the primarily Black neighborhood near the school,
Principal Jones had an implicit association between darker skin
tone and criminal behavior.
Real world implications

• Only five students were retained for final questioning, all of whom
were Black. Thus, although no criminal charges could be brought,
the principal concluded that each of the five students would be
suspended for three days to deter any further vandalism.

• Janae had never been suspended before and was disheartened that
she would receive Fs on all the assignments she was supposed to
turn in during the suspension period. She knew that this experience
would greatly decrease her likelihood of getting into college.
Real world implications (cont’d)

• Janae returned to class the following week. Though it felt good to get
back to her normal routine, Janae was still slightly sad and distressed
about having so much extra work to make up.

• Because her teachers’ implicit biases are related to their perceptions of

anger in the emotionality of Black students, Janae’s homeroom
teachers believed that she was exhibiting aggression; therefore, Janae
received verbal reprimands to “change her attitude” rather than being
referred to see a school counselor for her emotional response to the
circumstances.
 STRATEGIES

• Brainstorm ideas!
• What can we do as CYCs to mitigate the impact of bias?
• How can we lessen how much we allow our beliefs to
impact how we work with children/young people and
families?
• These can be some general strategies that can be
applied across situations. Some of you may have some
ideas specific to sex, sexuality and relationships.
Continuously examine your personal biases/belief
system

Ask Yourself: How do my current beliefs serve me?

Ask Yourself: What might I lose if I change my

beliefs?

Ask Yourself: What are the costs of maintaining my

current perspective?

Ask Yourself: How might it benefit me to change?

When working with young people…

• Ask yourself what is influencing your interactions, thoughts

and decision making: is it fair, equitable and just?

• Are you letting the way you think or feel about something
(e.g. abortion, LGBTQ relationships) influence what you say
and how you are interacting?
When working with young people… (cont’d)

• Are you listening to the young person and intentionally engaging in

centering their voice?
• Engage in Perspective-taking – involves taking another person’s
viewpoint intentionally. For example, try to imagine what it might
feel like to be an LGBTQ person who is coming to see a new youth
worker, or a teen who just found out she was pregnant
• What thoughts might come to mind? What might you worry about, or look
forward to?
Questions?
So…what are we doing on
Fridays???
• We are meeting for class this Friday, May 14th
• But…we won’t meet for class every Friday!
(YAY!)
• Most Fridays are being dedicated to working
on:
• SYEE training due June 18th
• Group work on Sexual Education
Workshops (due June 23rd/June 25th)
 Next Class/Next Week…

• Meet me here this Friday

(class #2 – May 14th)
• SYEE Training
• Group Workshops

• Next week:
• Class #3 – May 19th
• Exploring Sex and Gender
 Get familiar with Blackboard!

Your tasks before Review the course outline!

our lecture on
Wednesday Complete the reading and watch the video for this week
(Week 1) if you haven’t already done so!
(Class #3 – Sex &
Gender): Meet me back here on Friday (14th) so I can explain the
assignments

Complete the readings listed in Week 2 tab