Educators strive to maintain fair and equitable spaces throughout their learning communities. Sometimes the greatest challenge is something we can’t leave at home before school: implicit bias, which connects to individual experience. Rooted alongside our backgrounds and preconceived notions, this bias reflects the context, value judgments, and opinions that we hold.

As a result, it often proves the most difficult to overcome. As UCLA social psychologist Evelyn Carter noted, "Bias is woven through culture like a silver cord woven through cloth. In some lights, it's brightly visible [and] in others, it's hard to distinguish. And your position relative to that glinting thread determines whether you see it at all."

However, just because everyone has some form of bias does not justify its existence. Implicit bias can lead to a rise in discriminatory behavior across race, class, and gender. According to a National Academy of Sciences research study, over 32 million students in the United States experience unconscious bias. The following strategies help educators and district leaders alike mitigate implicit bias across their school communities.

1. Acknowledge: the first step towards preventing implicit bias is discovering what triggers it. Educators should acknowledge their individual biases in order to identify when it’s most likely to make itself known. From that point, group conversation or development workshops can transform this individual work into shared understanding.
2. Stop: after this internal reflection, work to stop implicit bias, either preemptively or in the moment. Maintaining a diverse staff helps minimize implicit bias before teachers enter their first scores in the gradebook. Once in the classroom, teachers can begin cultivating inclusive and diverse teaching practices to help students learn.‍
3. Prevent: set up safeguards to prevent implicit bias. As individual teachers grow and change, so will their mindsets. Administrators can support this work through staff meetings, guest speakers, and group activities, including a bias test. Finally, trying to better understand the perspective of another person prevents bias better than anything else.

Ultimately, addressing implicit bias yields more than just effective teaching in real time. It’s about examining our own cultural prejudices and advocating for a more empathetic way of interpersonal interactions.

Consult the following list of resources for further suggestions on addressing and unraveling implicit biases.

Resources:

• Racial disparities
• How Implicit Bias Impacts Our Children in Education
• Understanding Implicit Bias
• Is This How Discrimination Ends? A New Approach to Implicit Bias
• Teacher Bias: The Elephant in the Classroom
• Educator bias is associated with racial disparities in student achievement and discipline
• Four Ways Teachers Can Reduce Implicit Bias
• Awareness of Implicit Biases
• Measuring Implicit Bias in Schools
• Implicit Bias 101