The website Breaking the Prejudice Habit began as an immersive learning project funded by the Virginia Ball Center for Creative Inquiry at Ball State University. Mary Kite, the project director, selected an interdisciplinary team of 14 students to find ways to “break the prejudice habit” (Devine, Monteith, Zuwerink & Elliot, 1991). The group chose the name “AHA (Awareness, Harmony and Acceptance) Advocates” and they defined their mission as “working together to spread awareness of the problem of prejudice and discrimination, establishing harmony between groups, and promoting acceptance of differences.” This is a tall order by any standard, but their energy and enthusiasm began a journey that continues today. The Virginia Ball students created a set of group activities and videos designed for teaching about social change. The tools focused on the development of multicultural competence — that is, becoming aware of one’s own cultural values and biases, learning to value other worldviews, and developing interpersonal skills that are culturally appropriate (Mio, Barker & Rodriguez, 2016; Winterowd, Adams, Miville & Mintz, 2009). The seminar students created group activities, interviewed activists, wrote and filmed videos, and created a Facebook page. In recent years, 14 additional students have continued this work, contributing to the site as volunteers or for class credit. Three diversity consultants also contributed a teaching activity.
Our website was recognized with a Social Psychology Action Teaching Award (Honorable Mention, 2014) and by an Innovative Teaching Award (Honorable Mention, 2014) by the Society for the Scientific Study of Social Issues. The site currently hosts:
- Twenty different hands-on group activities, designed to be used with minimal preparation. Each page includes the activity objective, time required to complete it, instructions, suggested group size, and all the materials needed to implement the activity; most also include a short summary of the background literature. The provided discussion questions can help facilitate conversations in the classroom.
- Four public service announcements that students wrote, filmed and edited.
- Sixteen video diaries of people from diverse backgrounds talking about their personal experiences with prejudice.
- Thirteen interviews with social justice advocates.
- Definitions of terms that are commonly used when talking about diversity.
In addition, we have compiled lists of materials that can be used in diversity-related courses. These include:
- Fifty podcasts that can be used to provide background for discussion. Topics include anti-fat bias; implicit bias; women in science, technology, engineering and mathematics; ability status and many more.
- Social justice songs, categorized by topic (e.g., sexism and gender roles, ageism, race/ethnicity); these can be used at the beginning of class to set the stage for discussion of social activism or diversity-related topics.
- Videos (e.g., film clips and commercials) also categorized by topic (e.g., microaggressions, Islamophobia, prejudice against sexual minorities).
Most of the group activities have been tested in courses such as the psychology of diversity and the psychology of prejudice and discrimination. Several have been used in diversity workshops with faculty and other professionals. Many of these activities were peer-reviewed by the Society for the Teaching of Psychology’s Office of Teaching Resources in Psychology. One of the goals of the activities is to get students thinking about what happens in their own lives and to open discussion about difficult topics. The activities are created with high school and college students in mind, although several can be modified to fit younger students’ needs or changed to work with other audiences. All of the resources are open source; we encourage you to use them, share them and provide us with feedback about how well they worked. Suggestions for podcasts and videos are always welcome. We also encourage you to “like” our Facebook page; there we post stories, with an eye toward those that show how diversity can be a positive experience (see Dunn, Gurung, Naufel & Wilson, 2013).
References
Devine, P.G., Monteith, M.J., Zuwerink, J.R., & Elliot, A.J. (1991). Prejudice with and without compunction. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 60, 817-830. doi: 10.1037/0022-3514.60.6.817.
Dunn, D.S., Gurung, R.A.R., Naufel, K.Z. & Wilson, J.H. (2013). Teaching about controversial issues: An introduction. In D.S. Dunn, R.A.R. Gurung, K.Z. Naufel, & J.H. Wilson (Eds.). Controversy in the psychology classroom: Using hot topics to foster critical thinking(pp. 3-10). Washington, D.C.: American Psychological Association. doi: 10.1037/14038-001.
Mio, J.S., Barker, L.A., & Rodriguez, M.D. (2016). Multicultural psychology: Understanding our diverse communities (4th ed.). New York: Oxford University Press.
Winterowd, C.L., Adams, E., M., Miville, M.L., & Mintz, L.B. (2009). Operationalize, instilling, and assessing counseling psychology training values related to diversity in academic programs. The Counseling Psychologist, 37, 676-704. doi: 10.1177/0011000009331936
