Race: The Power of Illusion and Race Sorting

I was just reading my email from Teaching Tolerance, an offshoot of The Southern Poverty Law Center trying to raise awareness of racial/ethnic issues and decreasing the conflict related to them.  In the newsletter there was a link to a PBS site called "Race: The Power of an Illusion, a video from 2003."  The main activity I was directed to was to look at pictures and sort the faces into racial categories.  Wow.  

Let's just say I was not successful.  Nor are most people.  It's a real eye-opening activity that can be done by a person on under five minutes and could be a great beginner to a social psychology unit or a mini-unit on race, ethnicity and/or prejudice/discrimination.  Great for sociology as well.

What is Race?  Is Race for Real?

Sorting Activity

Main Page of Race/Illusions Site

posted by Chuck Schallhorn

Internet Search and Discover Activities

One of my favorite things to do is share new ideas and perspectives with my students--especially ones that I do not necessarily have time to do within the formal curriculum.  Since I teach on a 100-minute alternating block schedule, I have created a couple of activities that have the students go to web sites that deal with aspects of a unit, read through the sites, and answer questions.  As much as anything, it exposes them to new resources that I've already checked for accuracy and appropriateness (front-loading).  I also ask questions that have them consider issues that I have some personal interest in.  Perhaps, at some point, they will continue asking questions themselves about obvious things within the context of their own lives.

Here is my first one for this fall for Social Psychology.  If you'd like a .docx version of this document, email me at psydways AT gmail.com.  I've also made one for the brain and biology unit later in the term.

Psychology: Web Exploration          Name                                                                          Per     

Social Psychology Edition rev. F2011

Be sure to read the instructions on each one to make sure you are doing the proper action.

#1  http://www.beyondprejudice.com/reduce_your.html   Read the page and list ten things people can do to reduce their prejudicial behavior (I know there are more than 10). 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.

#2   http://about-face.org/r/facts/    List two facts each about: Body Image: Media: Eating Disorders: Children and the Media: Appearance Messages: Socioeconomic Status, Ethnicity, and the Thin Ideal:

#3   http://about-face.org/goo/archive/   Choose a brand from repeat offenders______________________. What messages do this company’s ads send?

#4   http://about-face.org/goo/archive/ Choose a media literacy category.__________________________ What messages do ads from this category send?

#5   http://www.about-face.org/gallery-of-winners/top-ten-winners/1-2/ Examine these ten ads.  Why are these ten ads seen as being better ads in terms of their portrayal of women?

#6    http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/article.php?lang=en&ModuleId=10005059    Describe where the term “ghetto” comes from.  Can you really describe something as "ghetto" now?  Explain.

#7     http://www.understandingprejudice.org/nativeiq/ Take your native IQ.  This is a test about your knowledge related to Native Americans and their history.  How did you do?  Explain why you did as well or as poorly as you did.

#9  So you are curious about brainwashing?  Check out this site: http://health.howstuffworks.com/brainwashing.htm Find terms and ideas we’ve studied so far to find out what you can discover about brainwashing.  Write down at least 5 things. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

#10  This site is a blog about relationships written by an author in the UK.  Choose one of the sub-articles and write down four observations/conclusions the research found about your topic.  http://www.spring.org.uk/2007/02/psychology-of-relationships.php Title of sub-article here: 1. 2. 3. 4.

#11  Go to this site:  http://psychcentral.com/news/2008/01/11/culture-affects-the-way-we-use-our-brain/1773.html Write a five sentence (one paragraph) summary of the findings.

#12  Can we avoid segregation? http://www.understandingprejudice.org/segregation/ Go to this site, read each short page and do the exercise.  Describe the Schelling Effect and the Anti-Schelling Effect. Schelling Effect Anti-Schelling Effect What you learned as a result of doing this exercise:

#12    http://www.ushmm.org/outreach/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007679 Describe what Nazi racism was about.

#13  Go to this site:  http://www.tolerance.org/activity/si-se-puede Read the article and list three key questions this raises in your mind. 1. 2. 3.

#14    https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/demo/selectatest.html Take two of the demonstration quizzes on this page.  Which two did you take?  How did you do?  What surprised you? Explain. Quiz 1 Result: Quiz 2 Result: Explain why you think you scored this way.  How did it surprise you?

posted by Chuck Schallhorn

Schemas--a great demo

I posted this recently on the AP Psych Listserv:

Schemas are a core concept that I have in all my psych classes--they are the key idea around which I create everything else (except biology).  I use the Drew Appleby Demo on Déjà vu, not for that concept, but for the creation of a false memory based upon our schemas.  The PPT I use is here:
https://sbhs-sbhsd-ca.schoolloop.com/blogdocs

Description of the activity I give I created for a textbook video lessons project and can be found on YouTube here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVEu3OVh3Uw&feature=related

The debriefing is here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2nEM-oT0Kw

The demo has worked perfectly for the past 15+ years.  Feel free to use and adapt.

For an assimilation example, I use "Monster's Inc." and the little girl "Boo" who calls Sully a "kitty."  He's obviously a monster to us, but she does not yet have that in her schema, so she uses what she has available already--furry, with ears, four legs and a tail means "kitty."  So far as I could tell, she never accommodated the idea of monster with Sully--she only had that with Randall.  She distinguished the two.

Chuck