CSTA: Google Surveying Educators On Unconscious Biases of Students, Parents

theodp writes: According to a Computer Science Teachers Association tweet, Google is reportedly asking educators to assess the unconscious bias of students and their parents for the search giant. "We are in the early stages of learning how unconscious bias plays out in schools, and who would benefit most from bias busting materials," begins the linked-to 5-page Google Form, which sports a ub-edu@google.com email address, but lists no contact name. "This survey should take 15 minutes to complete, and your responses are confidential, meaning that your feedback will not be attributed to you and the data will only be used in aggregate form." The form asks educators to "list the names of organizations, tools, and resources that you have used to combat unconscious bias," which is defined as "the attitudes or stereotypes that affect our understanding, actions, and decisions in an unconscious manner." A sample question: "Who do you think would benefit most from unconscious bias training at your school (or program)? Rank the following people in order (1=would most benefit to 5=would benefit least) training: Student, Parent (or guardian), Teacher (or educator), Guidance counselor, Principal." Google deflected criticism for its lack of women techies in the past by blaming parents' unconscious biases for not steering their girls to study computer science, suggesting an intervention was needed. "Outreach programs," advised Google, "should include a parent education component, so that parents learn how to actively encourage their daughters."

Comments

Please Stop. Enough.

[Anonymous Coward]

There is nothing in western society stopping women from pursuing technical careers except women themselves. They are given every possible advantage.

Yeah, blame the parents

[MikeRT]

Of course the reason they didn't steer their daughter into computer science is "bias" and not "we are the two people who know our daughter the most for the last 18 years of her life and most likely can steer her toward what would make her happy." Because the happiness of diversity coordinators matters more the happiness of the actual women being fought over here.

Re:Yeah, blame the parents

[Anonymous Coward]

This right here.
Rather than concluding that the parents are screwing up, we should conclude that girls and boys are different and there is nothing wrong with an unequal number of men and women in particular jobs.

Re:Yeah, blame the parents

[Sique]

Rather than concluding that the current situation is somehow normal and will never change, we should look in the past and in other regions of the world, where the biases were and are different and thus the numbers of men and women in particular jobs differ from what we see here. And then we wouldn't blame it on "girls and boys are different", because then we would know that it has not so much to do with the differences between girls and boys but more with the choices we as parents, as relatives, as teachers, as classmates and as a society make conciously or inconciously for our children.

Re:Yeah, blame the parents

[nospam007]

"As I have a daughter, I know better. Of course bias is a big part of it, expressed verbally and non-verbally. Parents and grand-parents who give their daughters princess dresses for christmas and act gleefully if the daughter wear it, express a bias."

Not only that. In Germany, they found out that teachers are unconscious biased against lower class pupils on the sole first-name the kids have. Because lower class parents often name their kids like celebrities or characters in TV-shows, while the more educated classes name their kids more traditionally.

If the kids are called Kevin, Bejoncé, Kanye or Ronny for example, they get lower grades for the same content.

The bias has even a name, it's called 'Kevinism'.

https://namecurator.wordpress....

http://www.ctvnews.ca/kevin-ch...

Re:Yeah, blame the parents

[Runaway1956]

What is obvious to a discerning person, is that Google is engaged in a social engineering campaign, not terribly dissimilar to the campaign waged by Kellogs in the late 1800's and early 1900's. http://mentalfloss.com/article...

You say, ". . . assumption that their differences are significant to influence . . ." And, I say that you are being judgemental and subjective. When 80% of a group of people tell you that they are not interested in something, THAT IS SIGNIFICANT! It's alright for you, and Google, to try to understand WHY that group of people are uninterested in $activity. It is NOT acceptable for you and Google (or Kelogg's) to try to force changes in those people.

Unproven assumption? How about empirical data?

Historically, males have been the risk takers, and females have by choice taken fewer risks. Guys do outrageous shit, and girls seldom do anything terribly outrageous. That's the way it is.

I say, "Fuck off, Google!"

All of that said - if there are any of you who overtly or covertly DISCOURAGE girls/women from working in STEM careers, you can fuck off right along with Google and company. Freedom. Freedom is all about doing whatever the hell you WANT TO DO!

Re:Yeah, blame the parents

[Anonymous Coward]

Instead, I have concluded that the only reason this is a problem for people is because it's a desk job with more men than women.
No one is researching the bias leading to medical schools with 90% women.
No one is researching the bias leading to 99% male construction workers, or garbage men.
That's the reason for my disdain for these people.
They don't care about equality. They care about being seen to care about equality.

Re:Yeah, blame the parents

[MikeRT]

Parents and grand-parents who give their daughters princess dresses for christmas and act gleefully if the daughter wear it, express a bias.

Shocking that parents are happy when their daughters like feminine things. It's almost like they don't think they're defective males and their views on clothing is orthogonal to computer issues.

Parents who at the same christmas complain if the daughter plays to much on the new computer express a bias.

There's nothing biased about that unless it's clearly hostility to the idea of women spending a lot of time on it. Unless she's doing "something geeky" with it like learning how to write code, doing semi-advanced artistic work, etc. then they probably have a point. I knew plenty of parents of boys who told their kids to GTF off their computer and go outside because all they were doing is surfing the web and playing games. Nothing biased about that either.

Television programming where the only computer affiliate is a dorky guy who might be brilliant at computers but is awkward at anything else expresses a bias.

And in real life, geek =~ dork to a lot of people, particularly women and particularly with younger geek males. A number of us grow to the point of being able to match the charisma and confidence of "normal men," but many of don't get there. We have not, and likely never will, reach a point where this stuff is considered cool on par with sports and stuff like that.

Most of the reasons why geek culture is considered more palatable is because the STEM industry booms combined with the decline in many fields has reduced our economic competition for social status. If you haven't been paying attention, the legal profession has been hit very hard by a glut of graduates and a dearth of positions that pay a wage better than a VB6 legacy app maintenance position.

Yes, you can actually spark interest in computer science. Yes, you can actually kindle the awakening interest and encourage it.

Yes you can do it. Statistically, you won't and for the same reason that you will never kindle an interest in "nurturing jobs" in a majority of males no matter how aggressive you are.

I know a very religious family that has a very good track record of getting their daughters into STEM fields. The older daughter was naturally interested, so they just put the opportunities there in front of her. You know how they got their younger daughter involved? They told her that if she couldn't prove how she was going to support herself on the degree, they wouldn't pay for it. Didn't matter to them what she chose, just couldn't be something stupid like a BA in Psychology or Political Science. Worked like a charm at motivating her to be practical. Turns out that rather than focusing on bias, forcing women to choose a productive major or simply not go to college on their parents' dime works pretty well.

Re:Yeah, blame the parents

[LaurenCates]

Maybe they're not interested in the current workforce dominated by males with sexist attitudes and L337 approaches?

Citation needed that the world is actually like this, please. I see this assertion everywhere with no evidence whatsoever to back it up.

When engineering projects are made that catter to the specific differences and interests of females (such as toy construction sets that are less centered on their pure mechanical structure and more on their usage and applications, [kickstarter.com]) the approval rate of girls towards is shown to increase. (The pink color seems to help in this case, BTW). This may very well a chicken-and-egg problem: women are not interested in science and tech because nowadays there's nothing interesting in it for them.

Nowadays?

People are interested in what they are interested in. They'll gravitate towards the things they fancy. If they don't want Legos, pink or otherwise, they'll find something else to do. That's the way it's always been.

I admit I don't know the full effect of a thing being pink has on girls in general, but on girls who are actually interested in building things, the color hardly matters because the desire to build is greater than having a pink thing. I daresay that the girls who treated the Legos with colorblindness are the ones that will eventually turn out to be the engineers that we so very much want girls to be in the first place, and the ones who chose the pink ones just wanted pink things because they were pink.

If your "empirical evidence" is mindless repeating of gender stereotypes, you lose an internet. Where's the connection that STEM people must be "risk-takers" (or that women don't do outrageous things, for that matter)?

Well, see your first statement. You lose one, too.

STEM is seen as "high-risk" because it's regarded as a harder field to succeed in. "Harder" is generally associated with "higher risk". How hard is that to understand?

No one is saying women don't do outrageous things. It's that they do them in far lesser numbers than men do. I can't tell you why, to be honest. But find me an arena where women are more dominant in doing outrageous things than men. The only one I can think of is Roller Derby, which coincidentally, doesn't really have a "male" component, does it?

Re:Yeah, blame the parents

[Runaway1956]

You point to some pink toys, as evidence that boys and girls are being treated differently. Now, look at those pink toys, and tell me more about them. WHY do pink toys increase a girl's interest? Come on, dig deep.

Mindless repeating of stereotypes. You are obviously superior, in that you mindlessly repeat liberal talking points.

I say again, if the girls WANT to work in STEM, get the hell out of their way. If they DO NOT WANT to work in STEM, STFU and let them do what they want to do.

Stop PUSHING the girls into occupations that they may or may not want. Just STFU and sit down, and let the girls be whatever they want to be.

The arrogant cocksucker who occupies the White House told women that he doesn't WANT them to be housewives. WTF does anyone care what he WANTS? Rhetorical question - I know exactly who wants the wives out of the homes, and I know why. Dragging Mommy out of the house opens the door for baby sitters, social workers, school administrators, and more to get involved in the child's life. So, Mommy is down the road, slaving away to earn some money (part of which the government takes away from her) to PAY for all of the baby sitting, etc ad nauseum.

Did I mention social engineering in my post above? Yes, I did. Social Justice warriors don't like the nuclear family, they don't even like an extended family. So, they are working to destroy the family. Social engineering. Look around you. It's blatantly obvious.

Re:Yeah, blame the parents

[AmiMoJo]

No one is researching the bias leading to medical schools with 90% women.

Actually there are people researching that. Lack of male nurses is a problem. The American Assembly for Men in Nursing offers support and scholarships in the US, for example.

No one is researching the bias leading to 99% male construction workers, or garbage men.

I spent five seconds searching for this on Google and it turns out that actually there is plenty of research and academic discourse on this subject, as well as newspaper articles and the like:

http://www.arcom.ac.uk/-docs/p...
http://www.academia.edu/634834...
http://www.equalityhumanrights...
http://www.theguardian.com/sus...
http://www.theguardian.com/sus...

People do care, you are just too lazy to even type a few words into Google.

Re:Yeah, blame the parents

[Runaway1956]

"It takes a village to raise an idiot" If you've frequently heard comments to that effect, then you've been in the presence of an SJW. They tend to view children as the responsibility and/or the property of the state. Child services around the nation seem to attract these kind of people. Whether a child services case worker happens to be a SJW or not, you seldom notice them - but when a SJW disagrees with a responsible parent or guardian, they have no qualms shouldering that responsible parent aside.

This bitch, for instance, who knew better than Mother OR her three children - http://jezebel.com/judge-who-j...

Re:Yeah, blame the parents

[Runaway1956]

Uhhh, no, that's your biased translation.

Let me state this as bluntly as possible. I support women, not Google. Google has no business interfering in social issues, whether those issues are the legalization of pot, gay rights, or women's issues. Liberal minded Google has no more right to do so, than any of the more conservative minded oil companies. It pisses me off that rich people can throw a few millions around, and thereby change the way all of us common folk have to live, and do business.

Google's rights to support women, or any other group, ends at their employment and human resource desks.

Re:Yeah, blame the parents

[Oligonicella]

No, "unconscious bias" is a false claim leveled because it's not possible to disprove - or prove. It's an phrase used in argumentation, no more.

Re:Yeah, blame the parents

[Oligonicella]

Parents who at the same christmas complain if the daughter plays to much on the new computer express a bias.

Anecdote pulled out of posterior invagination.

Television programming where the only computer affiliate is a dorky guy who might be brilliant at computers but is awkward at anything else expresses a bias.

As opposed to the shows that have computer geeks being a woman (47 listed, not including Arrow, Flash or Supernatural)?

Yes, you can argue by purposely not including information showing the opposite.

Parents' superpower

[Jesrad]

Google deflected criticism for its lack of women techies in the past by blaming parents' unconscious biases for not steering their girls to study computer science, suggesting an intervention was needed. "Outreach programs," advised Google, "should include a parent education component, so that parents learn how to actively encourage their daughters."

Ah, parents. The supposedly superpowerful entities that can somehow control their children's career path over decades without even trying, yet keep failing to stop them from having underage sex or trying drugs no matter how hard they actively attempt to.

Re:Parents' superpower

[AmiMoJo]

Your gross oversimplification is indeed ridiculous, but since that's not what Google is claiming it only speaks to your own (miss)understanding of the issue.

From an early age there is subconscious bias, not just from parents but from teachers as well. Since children tend not to be very interested in sex for the first 10+ years of their lives, and when they do become interested it's usually the unwillingness to educate and influence that is the problem, it's not really the same thing at all.

There has been a lot of study in this area. I know, it's sociology and psychology, both "bunk" sciences where the inability to provide control subjects who are isolated from birth is a severe handicap, but some people are trying to use it to improve things. And, well, it does seem to work, e.g. for the treatment of PTSD. So I'd say we should at least give it a try.

Anyway, we know that social factors and parental bias have a strong influence. The classic example is pink being a girl's colour. Most girls come to associate pink with their gender at an early age, yet 100 years it was considered a masculine colour and soft, pale blue was feminine. So if we can inadvertently flip that around, perhaps there are other changes we can make deliberately that will actually improve things.

Re:Parents' superpower

[alphatel]

"Let's find out what makes women dislike tech so we can fix it, then hire them for 25% less than we pay those white males."

Re:Parents' superpower

[Anonymous Coward]

Ahh MaiMoJo. As predicable as radioactive decay. Blame, deflect, and attack social status, throwing some ad hominem whenever possible and only show up for debates that provide opportunity to women or remove accountability for their own decisions.

Never respond to any criticism or logical retort and don't forget to use sweeping statements, prejudice, and open ended responses with hardly an explanation behind them. But hey, at least you only get modded up for the first few hours, then back down it goes.

Re:Parents' superpower

[Mashiki]

That comment is so good, it's almost like the BS that was spewed out the other day on sites like The Guardian, Time, and other outlets about how "teenage boys don't like big breasted women." Of course, when you look at what little data there is you find out that: There was no confirmation data, it used a online poll, it was heavily circulated on feminist sites, especially those espousing an anti-male point of view. Well, I mean the data is out there...you know the data that says said paygap is by choice.

Unless of course you're supporting the idea that women should be paid more, for less work. But that seems rather sexist to me.

Re:Parents' superpower

[Oligonicella]

No you don't, you just believe you do. No one actually does. You spend a lot of posts assuming authority.

Re:Please Stop. Enough.

[smittyoneeach]

Apparently you're oblivious to the political power that can be generated via a simple accusation.

Cultural Marxists gonna cultural Marxist

[Anonymous Coward]

Boys are falling behind in education but there are still a few male bastions that have not been conquered yet. Keep fighting the good fight progressives!

Too many assumptions in the questions

[mccalli]

A sample question: "Who do you think would benefit most from unconscious bias training at your school (or program)? ..."

There is an assumption there, which is as yet untested, that the respondant believes anyone would benefit from unconcious bias training at all.

Why does this sound like Orwell or CP reeducation?

[swb]

Citizen, we are here to free you from your unconscious biases so that you may more thoroughly accept the wisdom of the party and refine your thoughts and actions for the glory of the party and the state.

Stop. Posting. This. Shit.

[Karmashock]

Everyone is clearly sick to fucking death of his SJW vomit. Where ever you're getting this shit... go somewhere else. Maybe you'll find something less idiotic to post on the board.

Females wants alpha males

[TheDarkMaster]

What females wants is alpha males, both they and their parents are trained for this. Parents early insist they seek careers where they can find men with more power (political, law), and by repeat the females end up believing it too. And it's pretty hard to find alpha males in computer science courses (we care about more important things than animal instincts of domination and territory), so consequently you will see fewer females in such courses.

Haven't you guys see the *TRUE* picture yet?

[Anonymous Coward]

Folks, it is time you guys see beyond what is shown on the screen

This "female have been discouraged from STEM" thing is just a decoy

The power that be is using it to push for something MUCH MORE HEINOUS - total mind control

First of all I need to stress that I am not good in explaining thing, but please do allow me to try ...
 
The 'unconscious bias' thing is something very worrisome --- it is a tool for TPTB to average out all the thought pattern of the masses

You see, first they came up with 'hate speech', then 'hate thoughts' accusing people of 'hate' --- that was their first attempt to make people feel 'guilty' of the way they think

Then they came up with this 'unconscious bias' thing --- and may I ask all of you, do you know what exactly is meant by 'unconscious bias'??

Now they want to control not only what we think, but also, what we may unconsciously think !!

What TPTB is doing is much more heinous than that dreadful world as depicted by '1984' --- at least in that book the Big Brother had no control over the sub-conscious of the masses --- TPTB in the real world of 2015, at least in the West, has gone way beyond what the Big Brother of '1984' could ever dream of

We must stop looking at what is shown on the screen - we must dig deeper and understand what TPTB is trying to do

If we fail, the consequence is gonna be very terrible - all future generations will not only act, but THINK alike, even within their sub-conscious level!

Re:Haven't you guys see the *TRUE* picture yet?

[Curunir_wolf]

I think you could benefit from some re-education training...

Of course we trust Google

[Laxator2]

"your responses are confidential, meaning that your feedback will not be attributed to you and the data will only be used in aggregate form."

Translation:

"We already have enough information to identify you personally, so there is no need for you to provide us with your name."

so...

[buddyglass]

...shouldn't it be subconscious biases and not unconscious?

Re:Why does this sound like Orwell or CP reeducati

[Mashiki]

That's because it is. Go hang around some feminist sites these days like feministing or the mary sue, and you'll find out that using bullshit to make up your point is pretty much accepted. And of course if you point out the flaw, you're automatically a persona non grata to be purged from the ranks.

Re:Please Stop. Enough.

[Oligonicella]

You mean like wearing the wrong shirt or telling the wrong joke?