The researchers conclude that the study underscores the need to explore the effectiveness of value-diversity efforts in addressing inequity. "Despite good intentions to promote egalitarianism through colorblindness, our findings show that doing so sometimes elicits the exact opposite outcome, permitting even explicit forms of racial discrimination to go undetected and unaddressed," said Apfelbaum. "Perhaps most alarming, on the surface, colorblindness appears to work quite wellâreported incidents of bias do decrease. In spite of such encouraging signs, however, our study suggests that colorblindness may not reduce bias as much as it adjusts the lens through which bias is perceived."
In their experiment, the researchers explored the effects of promoting a colorblind approach to diversity among 8- to 11-year-old students. First, students reviewed different versions of a multimedia storybook, half received a colorblind version and the other half received a value-diversity version. In both stories, the narrator championed racial justice, but the colorblind version encouraged minimizing race-based distinctions, whereas the value-diversity version encouraged embracing these differences. (âWe need to focus on how we are similar to our neighbors rather than how we are differentâ vs. âWe want to show everyone that race is important because our racial differences make us special.â)
After the storybooks were read, the students listened to three stories featuring varying degrees of racial bias: a control story in which a White child was marginalized by his White schoolmateâs contribution to a school science project; an ambiguous story regarding a White studentâs exclusion of a Black student from his birthday party; and an explicitly biased story describing a White studentâs unprovoked assault of a Black student in a soccer game. After the stories, students were asked to describe the three events and their responses were video recorded.
The results found that students who had read the value-diversity version of the storybook were more likely to detect evidence of racial discrimination: 43 percent of students perceived discrimination in the ambiguous story and 77 percent perceived discrimination in the explicitly biased story.
In the colorblind condition, on the other hand, the frequency with which students detected discrimination dropped significantly, to 10 percent of children for the ambiguous story, and to only 50 percent in the explicit storyâa scenario that portrayed overt evidence of racially biased behavior.
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