Listening to Build Awareness of Biases and Power Imbalances
Help participants practice listening, gain a deeper understanding of context, biases & assumptions, and recognize power imbalances in a discussion
Dear collaborative discussion friends,
This week we are highlighting two activities that help participants become aware of context, biases & assumptions and recognize power imbalances in a discussion, while also helping them develop their listening skills. All the activities in the toolkit have an activity key that indicates the level of the activity (beginner or advanced) and other characteristics using icons. Activities that support listening skills are denoted with the following icon.
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This week's activities:
Activity 3.3 – Awareness of Context, Bias, & Assumptions
Activity 4.7 – Recognizing Power Imbalances in Decision Making
Two activities that help participants recognize biases, assumptions, and power imbalances in a discussion, and develop listening skills
Activity 3.3 Awareness of Context, Bias, & Assumptions encourages participants to reflect on their own and others’ biases and assumptions in a nonjudgmental way. It uses a visual and tactile method to help participants explore these assumptions and practice suspending them. Participants are given a controversial topic to discuss and asked to write down any preconceived opinions or ideas they have regarding this particular topic on a piece of paper. Participants now tape the piece of paper with these assumptions to the front of their table or desk. They have now literally suspended their biases and assumptions. Participants are invited to discuss and explore the meaning, sources, and context of these assumptions as a group. Having put aside their biases, participants are asked to then discuss the selected issue. They then reflect on what impact exploring each others’ biases and suspending their own assumptions had on the conversation.
This activity helps participants openly reflect on their biases and assumptions about a particular topic and practice setting aside their own preconceived notions to maintain an open mind while listening to each other and engaging in a discussion.
Activity 4.7 – Recognizing Power Imbalances in Decision Making helps participants examine the role power plays in our society, specifically in group decision making. This activity shows how power can work in both obvious and more subtle ways. It demonstrates how power can reinforce the status quo, including existing biases and stereotypes. Participants are also encouraged to critically examine and challenge existing power dynamics.
This activity helps participants reflect on the way different biases, assumptions and stereotypes both influence and are influenced by the power dynamics in a group, which in turn affects how the group arrives at any particular decision. Participants are organized into small groups and introduced to a scenario in which a decision has to be made. Each person is then given an envelope with a random number of beans and asked to choose a stakeholder to play in the given scenario based on the number of beans they have. The number of beans represents the number of times they can contribute to the discussion and, therefore, the amount of power they have. Participants then share what stakeholder they have chosen to role play with their group. Each group then engages in a discussion about the chosen scenario, with the aim of reaching a decision by the end of the conversation.
This activity helps participants critically examine the relationship between biases, stereotypes and power imbalances and enables them to challenge the unfair distribution of power in society and in discussions.
Looking forward to collaborating,
Ritu Thomas & the Collaborative Discussion Team