Bias in resources
A critical look at the resources that are currently used in your school will help you consider whether or not they help a deeper, clearer and accurate understanding of the global dimension. Sometimes bias is difficult to detect, for example in world maps, atlases and globes. The common Mercator projection shows Europe as the centre of the world, and very large compared with the equatorial regions. It was drawn as far back as the sixteenth century. For a number of different map projections, look at the following website: Map projections
Now complete the activity on the right, which can be used as a staff INSET activity, or as a classroom activity with pupils to encourage critical observation, reading and thinking.
Activity Resources:
- Images
- Interactive
- Sound
- Text
- Video
Activity
- Ask each group to select some resources used in your school which concern people and places. These can be selected from any area of the curriculum and can include paper resources, fiction and non-fiction books, and electronic resources. Then consider these questions:
- Who produced the resource?
- What message is it trying to give?
- Click on the Text icon and print out sufficient copies of the 'Bias alert form and notes on different biases', from Global Citizenship: the handbook for primary teaching (Young and Commins, 2002, pp. 24-5), for each group.
- Analyse the resources in groups using the checklist on the bias alert form and the notes on different biases. Think of other biases that could be added to this list.
- Then complete a bias alert form for resources that you feel deserve such a warning (others may or may not agree).
- Finally, if the activity is being used for an INSET session, discuss the findings as a whole group and decide whether the idea would be useful in your school. If not in this form, how could the activity be modified to suit your school better?
Note: If using the activity with pupils, they will need to first consider what constitutes bias and why this is a problem. They will need a simplified 'different biases' sheet based on their own criteria of what constitutes bias. Ensure that some resources contain clear examples so pupils can practise looking for bias in these.
