Part A
The podcast highlights an experiment in racial discrimination that a teacher used to improve the awareness of her class on prejudice during the peak of the civil rights movement. The video titled “A Class Divided” starts by highlighting a reunion of the then third graders who took part in the experiment in Iowa, led by their teacher Jane Elliot. The reunion offers an opportunity for the participants to reflect on the impact the experiment had on their lives. The film then transcends the initial experiment and refection of the participants and transfers to a different setting. In this setting, the participants are correctional officers and they go through the experiment to improve their awareness of discrimination. The video finishes with the originator of the experiment’s originator highlighting some of its applications in improving diversity awareness and tolerance.
The material in the podcast and that in the book relate because they all are about diversity. They inform the readers and the viewers about discrimination and diversity in society. They also talk about tolerance and the awareness of the existing superficial differences in society that create barriers in the interactions among people from different communities. These barriers are superficial because they depend on discrimination born out of learned ignorance conditioned into the subconscious of the perpetrators.
Currently, I utilize the information from the podcast in my interactions with people from diverse backgrounds. My multicultural awareness enables me to interact with people who hold different political, religious, and social ideologies without feeling the need to denigrate their experiences as inferior to mine. However, having watched the video, I will make a point of trying to recommend it to people as part of leadership training and part of teamwork exercises. Not only is the experience important, but it provides an opportunity for better interactions among different people in society.
Part B
In an article titled “The Neuroscience of Prejudice and Stereotyping” by Amodio (2014), the author highlights the development of intergroup prejudice as well as how this grows into stereotyping. In the article, the author describes the behavioral and cognitive influences of discrimination on the propagation of intergroup conflict. Amodio demonstrates the genesis of prejudice. The author proceeds to show how intentioned elements can exploit the formation of these biases negatively to stir conflict or positively to nurture diversity. Concepts such as self-regulation are part of the article’s focus, which also seeks to demystify complex forms of articulating bias. The author provides various descriptions of how biases form. When deconstructing racial bias, the author highlights how visual interactions, including color, play a critical role in the brain. They plant the conscious ideation of difference and bias and form them cognitively. The author also explores behavior interpretations that form implicit prejudice and biased notions then formulate an interpretation of the difference subconsciously.
The article connects to the material of the corresponding chapter because it breaks down the social aspect of prejudice into a scientific concept on which we can conduct effective scientific research. This approach provides an opportunity for the readers to understand the process of how the subconscious engineering of our minds is selective and based on preference. The article also provides an explanation of how we can conduct self-regulation to ensure better utilization of our cognitive and behavioral biases to avoid stereotypes and intergroup conflicts.
References
Amodio, D. M. (2014). The neuroscience of prejudice and stereotyping. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 15(10), 670.
Frontline. (1985) A class divided. PBS, https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/class-divided/
