Forskningens Døgn 2020 er aflyst
DiversityLAB is a workshop format that combines design thinking and norm-critical exercises with the latest research insights on diversity and unconscious bias. It leads you through a structured process that, step by step, engages you to critically reflect on societal norms and to mobilize these insights in order to solve an equality challenge relevant to your own organization.
It is a scientific fact that our human brains are incapable of processing all the information that they are confronted with on a daily basis. Therefore, our brains must make shortcuts that rely on categorizations. We can also rely on norms, which are guidelines for behavior and practices, that can help us with our complex day-to- day lives. While our brains would be unable to function without these categories and norms, the problem is that these are based on culturally and historically defined ideas of for example gender, race, religion and sexuality. It is these categorizations that dictate what, in any given context, we understand to be normal or natural.
This also means that we, without consciously thinking about it, make erroneous judgements. For example, we automatically relate certain bodies to certain professions, positions and values. This means that our evaluations of, for instance, candidates for new jobs are always gendered, classed, sexualized, raced etc. – often unwantedly so! This is called unconscious bias.
Such biases can thus lead to an implicit and sometimes invisible form of discrimination, creating inequality as well as leading to bad business decisions because different people’s qualifications, skills, and competences are not evaluated as objectively as we might think. Understanding and limiting unconscious bias therefore has important benefits that directly impact how we work together, be that at work or in our free time.
DiversityLAB is organized in a way that nudges participants to become aware of some of their own biases and pushes them to transgress the categorization shortcuts in their minds.