Upcoming Project 2007-2008

Confronting Bias: Examining the Psychological Impact of Prejudice, Discrimination, and Bias

Everyday we are bombarded by images, messages, and people who shape our thinking, behaviors and experiences.  As a population we represent the various dimensions of diversity.  Due to the diversity of our biology and the social environment in which we live, we as a whole population must acknowledge that the experiences we own as individuals are unique.  If we do not take the time to acknowledge and reflect on how the experiences of others may vary from our own, we will never truly appreciate the sameness and differences of others.  We must begin to understand how we as individuals shape the experiences of others around us.  In order to embrace diversity, we must confront the bias that exists within our environment and our own thinking.

Through a process of academic research, interviews, and personal reflection, Tremper High School Psychology students are examining the psychological impact of prejudice, bias and discrimination.  After completing academic research and interviewing practicing psychologists whose work prominently pertains to the experiences people commonly have with prejudice and discrimination, students will examine how individuals cope with these negative messages.  In addition to the critical analysis of psychological research, students will create research papers exploring a specific psychological phenomena relating to the experience of prejudice, bias, or discrimination.  Students will then use their research to create digital media projects.  The focus of this project is to combine the activities of academic research, writing, collaboration, and digital media technology in order to create a product that can be used to create a broader awareness about the psychological impact of bias, prejudice, and discrimination.

2007-2008 Research Collaboration:

During the beginning of this school year, Haebig’s Psychology students and UWM students of Dr. Pasternak, Assistant Professor, Secondary English Education, at the University of Wisconsin- Milwaukee collaborated on a cyber conferencing initiative. Tremper High School students are currently studying, researching and addressing the impact of bias, prejudice and discrimination resulting in I-Search papers that will be the basis for other digital content projects using iLife software.

Besides acting as Haebig’s psychology students’ writing center tutors, through cyber space, Tremper and UWM students took a collaborative approach to rhetorically analyze the Internet for bias, prejudice and discrimination – learning more about how rhetoric works to support or impede hate. In creating evaluative criteria, students visited biased web sites in addition to scholarly web sites – creating an opportunity to host difficult dialogues across educational levels and through a mentoring partnership.

Further, examples of this project will be posted on the Apple Learning Interchange.  Student reflections and a digital video evaluating the process of this cyber conferencing and tutoring collaboration will also be available.  In addition, students are currently creating digital content projects based on the research of this collaboration, and aim to organize a community event premiering their work.

“Pertaining to Ms. Haebig's Psychology UW-M field trip, I was able to soak in a vast majority of the given information. Focusing on source reliability, we discerned url extensions (such as .edu, .com, .gov, .org) and reasoned that not all Internet sources that exist are credible. For example, .com exemplifies a commercial website, in which any person can readily create, while .gov pertains to a government website, which can contain bias from conflicting political beliefs. Likewise, the term "peer reviewed" was emphasized, meaning the source has been deigned trustworthy by other people and prevails as scholarly.

In continuation, I found Ms. Schaefer's lecture on discrimination and bias to be the most interesting. Providing a short documentary clip, women were revealed as being affected by prejudice on a daily basis.
As a result of this trip, I will apply my newfound knowledge of various research techniques and sources. I will contact my UW-M student guide, for further guidance concerning my research paper.” --Student

Click Here to View Video Footage of Our Collaboration: