About Our Research Study

During her undergraduate studies, Bryanna conducted her honors thesis research entitled “Reducing Racial and Gender Implicit Biases: The Effects of Multicultural Education on a Child’s Preferences and Occupational Aspirations.” The main focus of Bryanna’s research was to find out if children today have implicit biases for both race and gender and if these biases were impacting their perception of who could do certain jobs and their own image of self worth in being able to do the jobs themselves. She conducted interviews with 53 children aged 3-5 and had students point to an emoji skin tone spectrum. She asked them which faces were the good faces, the bad faces, and who could do all of the different jobs such as doctor, teacher, nurse, athlete, or police officer etc. She reminded the children that they could choose all or none of the faces for all their answers. The children saw the faces of color as predominantly bad and chose them for less jobs and did the opposite for White and male faces. Bryanna wanted to help reduce these biases.

               

                Bryanna’s Awards for her Honors Thesis Research

Bryanna was given the 2018 Connecticut College Human Development Department Research Award for academic excellence in research for her honors thesis study.

FULL RESEARCH PAPER HERE