Testing, Developing And Learning About Cultural Competency

Learning about cultural competency can take many forms. Perhaps we have unknowing bias or actions which are not culturally sensitive. We may even pass such bias on to youth and others we guide or train. These resources will help identify through tests and skill building experiences perceptions in the world of cultural competency. Take time to explore who you think you are; you may discover some new ways of thinking about the world in which you live.

Race-The Power of Illusion

We all know that people look different. Anyone can tell a Czech from a Chinese. But are these differences racial? What does race mean? Find the answers to these and other questions by exploring different interactivities within Race - The Power of an Illusion. Start by viewing the Sorting People activity and then explore other areas of this site.

Test Yourself for Hidden Bias, and Potential Stereotypes and Prejudices

About Stereotypes and Prejudices

Hidden Bias Tests measure unconscious, or automatic, biases. Your willingness to examine your own possible biases is an important step in understanding the roots of stereotypes and prejudice in our society.

The ability to distinguish friend from foe helped early humans survive, and the ability to quickly and automatically categorize people is a fundamental quality of the human mind. Categories give order to life, and every day, we group other people into categories based on social and other characteristics.

This is the foundation of stereotypes, prejudice and, ultimately, discrimination.

About Hiddes 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 egalitarianism, and deliberately work to behave without prejudice, yet still possesses hidden negative prejudices or stereotypes.

Psychologists at Harvard, the University of Virginia and the University of Washington created "Project Implicit" to develop Hidden Bias Tests — called Implicit Association Tests, or IATs, in the academic world — to measure unconscious bias.

"Implicit Association Tests" (IATs) can tap those hidden, or automatic, stereotypes and prejudices that circumvent conscious control. The IAT procedure may be useful beyond the research purposes for which it was originally developed. It may be a tool that can jumpstart our thinking about hidden biases: Where do they come from? How do they influence our actions? What can we do about them?

See what may be lingering in your psyche.

Test Yourself for Hidden Bias

Take a test at Project Implicit's Web site

Source: Teaching Tolerance: A Project of the Southern Law Center