Celebrating Diversity

Diversity and bias awareness are important issues in today’s society. The front pages of many newspapers are focused on immigration issues, ethnic tensions, and more. Teaching youth about diversity and bias awareness can help them better understand the current state of society, other cultures, and the negative impact of stereotyping.

Community Works Session 26, Diversity and Bias Awareness: A Look at Stereotypes, engages teens in a series of discussions and activities to help them understand and celebrate diversity, learn the importance of respecting others’ differences, recognize stereotyping and realize its impact, and understand teens’ role in reducing acts of prejudice and discrimination. An important step in the session gives teens an opportunity to create and share their own identity profile. This activity helps your students learn about each others’ differences and similarities in a safe environment.

Service-learning projects that Community Works students can complete to address diversity and bias awareness include:

• Creating a peer education program to teach other teens or younger children about diversity and bias awareness
• Organizing “days of respect,” in which all members of the school or community can share strategies about diversity awareness and hate crimes
• Recruiting and including youth from diverse backgrounds in student groups
• Peer-tutoring English as a second language for students

You can use the online enhancements for this session for more tips, web resources, and service-learning project ideas. For a free, electronic copy of Community Works Session 26: Diversity and Bias Awareness: A Look at Stereotypes, contact us with your name and email address.