Touching on a touchy topic

1. Discussion of racial bias is always a touchy topic. People (readers) tend to react to the writer’s argument emotionally. For example, an article that states that there is racial bias against one group in a situation may be interpreted as expressing the writer’s racist political agenda. Arthur Jensen caused an incredible uproar in the 1960’s when he published statements that he said were based on scientific evidence. Lloyd Humphreys, in a review of Jensen’s book, Bias in Mental Testing, says, “Jensen discusses intelligence as a phenotypic construct. The problem of ethnic differences in phenotypic intelligence is emotionally charged, which makes rational consideration of the issues difficult.” (http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/custom/portlets/recordDetails/detailmini.jsp?_nfpb=true&_&ERICExtSearch_SearchValue_0=ED256778&ERICExtSearch_SearchType_0=no&accno=ED256778). By the way, a definition of phenotype (I had to look up the word) is “the observable physical or biochemical characteristics of an organism, as determined by both genetic makeup and environmental influences” (from http://www.thefreedictionary.com/phenotype_). Since Jensen argued that blacks scored lower on intelligence tests based on phenotypical factors, most scientists would agree that Jensen did have a political agenda.
   
   I am quick to tell people that race is simply a social construct. Scientifically, there are no “races” in the human species. “The biological context of the term race is only widely accepted when used to refer to a subspecies arising from a partially isolated reproductive population and thus share a considerable degree of genetic similarity. An example is the African wildcat, which is a subspecies of the domesticated cat” (http://www.biology-online.org/dictionary/Race). But, as Smedley and Smedley state in APA Online at http://www.apa.org/journals/releases/amp60116.pdf “race as biology is fiction, racism as a social problem is real.”
   On the other hand, racial bias does exist and literature which demonstrates this abounds. Here is just one example: Ferguson, in an article in Learning Point Associates (http://lpadev.learningpt.org/gaplibrary/text/teacherperceptions2.php) says that “experimental studies confirm that race is an important part of the information teachers use to form an impression of a student and his or her potential. In one experiment, teachers were asked to listen to a tape of a student's response to a question about their favorite TV show. They were then shown a picture (of either a black or white girl or boy) that was supposed to be a picture of the student speaking (but was not necessarily). The teachers were then asked to rate the taped responses for personality, quality of the response, current academic abilities, and future academic potential. Ferguson says that the outcome of this experiment showed that there was a highly significant relationship between the race of the student in the picture they were shown and their estimation of the student's response and academic abilities.”
   While a blog is not the place for too many references, I certainly can find many that show that race is a factor in teachers’ perceptions of students. A few are listed at the end of this blog.
   I do have a political agenda which I am eager to state: I would like to see students interact in a classroom situation without experiencing this bias. It seems that here is another area where the use of an avatar in an online class can help eliminate that bias.
   Take a look at my picture (the one I have posted as part of my profile in this class):
   1. How old am I?
   2. What is my race?
   
   Here are just a few references that assert the validity of the conclusion that preconceived notions about race do influence teacher perceptions are:
   1.http://www.allacademic.com/meta/p_mla_apa_research_citation/0/2/3/3/1/p23317_index.html
2. http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/custom/portlets/recordDetails/detailmini.jsp?_nfpb=true&_&ERICExtSearch_SearchValue_0=ED488840&ERICExtSearch_SearchType_0=no&accno=ED488840
3. http://classroomconnection.blogspot.com/2006/04/bias-and-prejudice.html