Date of Award

2018

Document Type

Open Access Dissertation

Department

Educational Studies

First Advisor

Rhonda Jeffries

Abstract

mplicit aptitudes are an inherent part of every person, but rarely are these subconscious biases acknowledged or discovered. Not only is their existence rarely acknowledged, on the off chance that awareness exists, rarely is the effort made to determine how they affect overt behavior. Perhaps acknowledging these implicit aptitudes and their effects on behavior can enable people to reflect on what they actually believe. Over the course of one semester 23 students enrolled in an English 2 Honors class were asked to take a race-based IAT in addition to being taught a curriculum embedded with self-leadership skills and multicultural texts. This study sought to determine what implicit aptitudes were held by these predominately White high school students, and if an awareness of these implicit aptitudes along with a purposeful English Language Arts curriculum would increase their cultural sensitivity. Ultimately, it was determined that awareness of implicit aptitudes by these students did increate their cultural awareness and sensitivity.

Rights

© 2018, Dawn L. Weathersbee

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