teamupagainstprejudice-instructions

Team Up Against Prejudice
Toolkit

Instructions + Materials
Relevant Research
Stories From the Field
Ask Us a Question

Evaluation Materials

OPTIONAL: Use these materials to evaluate the impact of this toolkit.

BEFORE doing the toolkit activities, give participants the Pre-toolkit Survey.

Participants will then complete the Post-toolkit Survey AFTER doing the toolkit activities.

 Toolkit Instructions

Step 1

Step 1: Recruit a diverse team

OPTIONAL: If you want to evaluate the impact of this toolkit, ask participants to complete the pre-toolkit survey before doing the toolkit activities and the post-toolkit survey after doing the activities.

Social psychologists find that mere contact between people of different races, ages, sexual orientations, abilities, and other backgrounds reduces prejudice. Yet too often, people seek only those who are similar to themselves.

So mix it up! Use the checklist below or here to create a team of people with distinct social backgrounds. Your team may not have representatives from every walk of life, but making sure you have some cultural diversity can go a long way toward breaking down barriers between people.

Does your group have people of different:

  1. Genders?
  2. Ages?
  3. Religions?
  4. Races and ethnicities?
  5. Social classes?
  6. Sexual orientations?
  7. Nationalities?
  8. Linguistic backgrounds?

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Step 2

Step 2: Give all groups equal status on your team

In many situations, some groups have more power and status than others. For instance, in many workplaces, men have higher status than do women.

Yet research shows that prejudice lessens when all the social groups on a team have similar power and status. To make sure that your team doesn’t reproduce widespread social inequities, look at your team and ask:

  1. Do members of one group hold most of the leadership positions, or is leadership shared between groups?
  2. Do members of one group do most of the “housekeeping” or caretaking, such as taking notes or bringing food, or are these duties equally shared among groups?
  3. Do members of one group do most of the talking, or do people from different groups equally share the floor?

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Step 3

Step 3: Ensure that everyone is aiming for the same goal

When team members are aiming for the same target, they pay less attention to their differences. To help everyone in your group focus on the same target:

  1. Ask each person to say what your group is trying to achieve
  2. Note similarities between answers
  3. Formulate a mission statement that captures group members’ shared goals
  4. Encourage group members to memorize your shared mission statement

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Step 4

Step 4: Increase cooperation and decrease competition

Social science tells us that cooperation produces better relations between people of diverse backgrounds. To encourage cooperation on your team:

  1. Structure tasks and rewards so that individuals can succeed only if the team succeeds
  2. Hold individuals accountable for contributing their fair share of the work to the team
  3. Encourage team members to share resources, support, and praise with each other
  4. Help team members develop communication and conflict management skills
  5. Make time and space to discuss what’s working and not working in the team’s processes

For more on building cooperative groups, visit Jigsaw Classroom.

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Step 5

Step 5. Share your story here (optional)

Describe your experiences using this toolkit on the Stories From the Field page. We may contact you and ask to feature your story on this website.

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