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Exposing Cultural Bias in the Classroom: Self-
Evaluation as a Catalyst for Transformation

Maribel V. Bird
 

Abstract: The 21st Century finds institutions of higher education struggling to meet the challenges created by a global 
society. One of those challenges is graduating students who are prepared to function effectively in a multicultural society.  To 
assist students, some institutions seek to introduce them to as many cultures as possible by adding programs to the curriculum. 
The difficulty with this approach is that although our globalized society demands a broadened cultural competence, logistic 
constraints make it impossible to have a curriculum that is all-encompassing.  

In this essay I examine how, with the support of institutions, teachers and students should:  engage in self-
examination, become aware of societal biases and privileges for and against certain groups, and familiarize 

themselves with cognitive dissonance –all essential to the educational process of cultivating cultural competence.  
Self-awareness plays a prominent role in the development of cultural competence, improving classroom dynamics, 
and the results of classroom discussions.  After conducting a self-evaluation, faculty and students will be more 
conscientious of personal biases and more open and receptive to differences of opinion.  A conversation that is 
free and allows informed dissent brings about intellectual growth and subsequent transformation. The kind of 
dialog that makes it possible for teachers and students to engage in an open discussion has been characterized 
as “encompassing” and “liberating” by scholars such as Ira Shor and Paulo Freire (1987). The “liberatory class” 
is the place that allows “thinking critically about the things that interfere with the critical thought” (Shor and 
Freire, 1987, p. 14).  

Theorists such as Paulo Freire (1993), Ira Shor (1992), and Stanley Aronowitz and Henry Giroux (1991) argue 
that teaching is a biased and political endeavor.  Teaching is biased because teachers are not impartial entities.  
Rather, they embody a reality that has been shaped through personal experiences and, more importantly, teachers 
incorporate in their lessons intangibles like past influences, values, and traditions inherent to their cultures.  If 
we consider culture as that set of traits and values intrinsic to a particular group, it is easy to see that everyone 
belongs to several cultures. This is no less true for educators, even among a seemingly homogeneous staff; the 
circle of teachers who adhere to any particular set of values is going to be diverse, given the number of different 
groups that influence the characteristics and beliefs of each individual.  In a sense, each teacher is unique 
because of the diversity of his/her cultural affiliations. 

If it is true that culture shapes the beliefs and values of every individual, then it stands to reason that teachers 
should also engage in self-examination. The final result of this self-analysis should be an awareness of the values 
and beliefs acquired through cultural affiliations or other life-changing experiences.  By being cognizant of the 
cultural nuances and values influencing their lives, teachers are more likely to bring an authentic approach to 
classroom exchanges.  A teacher who recognizes his/her own biases is more likely to incorporate various sides of 
an argument into the conversation, thus encouraging students to think more critically.  Without critical thinking 
there is no intellectual growth (which is ultimately what we want to accomplish in the classroom).  Furthermore, 
a teacher should become self-aware and uncover harmonious and/or contradicting beliefs and values intrinsic 
to the different cultures with which he/she identifies or traditions to which he/she adheres, and realize the 
effect of those values, beliefs, and rituals on current group interactions. This awareness will allow teachers to be 
more relevant to the lives of their students because the classroom discourse will be more inclusive.  Students are 



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less likely to freely discuss topics when they know the teacher struggles with contradictory points of view.  The 
inflexible professor is the one who receives back the answers he or she predicted.

Educators should never underestimate students’ contributions or their ability to bring their personal 
experiences to bear on academic topics.  If the students’ opinions are taken into consideration they will be more 
willing to bring them to the classroom discourse.  In my experience as a university professor, I have observed 
students come to life when the subject area becomes pertinent to their realities.  Establishing connections and 
validating students’ ideas result in a higher level of engagement and much more meaningful interaction. 

Moreover, while it is important for teachers to be aware of cultural biases and other external influences in 
order to be effective, it is the responsibility of higher learning institutions to provide opportunities for continuous 
education on these matters.  This is especially true for institutions that house a seemingly homogenous faculty, 
for deliberate effort is needed in order to raise the consciousness of faculty on issues of cultural and societal 
biases, providing strategies to neutralize the impact of such biases in the classroom. These efforts may include 
hiring professionals to conduct a workshop or a series of workshops in diversity training.  But whatever efforts 
are taken, we should realize that we need a variety of different means to facilitate exposure to cultural diversity. 

One example of societal bias usually overlooked is the concept of white privilege. While not overt, white 
privilege affects the way people relate to each other. Peggy McIntosh (1988) describes white privilege “as an 
invisible package of unearned assets” (McIntosh, 1088, 4). Examples of white privilege, according to McIntosh 
(1988), include having one’s race represented in the curriculum when addressing heritage and founding people, 
not being harassed when shopping alone, being able to rent or buy in the neighborhood of one’s choice, and 
even having the color “flesh” of a bandage more or less match the color of her skin.  

Knowledge and understanding of white privilege prevents communication hurdles by equalizing the balance 
of power in the classroom. A teacher cognizant of society’s biases will be able to bring the race or group not 
represented into the discussion.  In this manner, students will feel represented and validated.  Likewise, being 
more self-aware of society’s biases and cultural codes enables the teacher to realize that words convey messages that 
are powerful, and that sometimes their meanings could be misconstrued depending on the teacher’s intonation, 
body language, stance on issues, and the words’ contexts.

For the most part, teachers are willing to embark upon analytical processes wherein they are able to argue, 
question, and even change their position on specifics related to a familiar content area, but very few are even 
aware that similar analysis should occur when teaching a subject that is new or falls out of their comfort zones. 
When planning a course, a teacher should go through a process of evaluating his/her emotions towards the 
topic.  The targets of the scrutiny should be the feelings and emotions brought about by the content area.  An 
in-depth examination and understanding of the emotions and values rooted in cultural beliefs are important.  
For example, a teacher developing a new course in Latin American Studies should understand his/her feelings 
toward different ethnic groups and revisit class, power, and political struggles and their impacts on peoples’ 
lives. Whereas traveling to Latin America would be the best way to connect with the people behind the text, 
connections are possible through different means such as movies, documentaries, one-on-one exposure, and the 
arts. Teaching out of the comfort zone could become the best opportunity for a teacher to learn about him or 
herself. During the process of examining and evaluating personal attitudes and behaviors, faculty and students 
may experience cognitive dissonance.  Cognitive Dissonance Theory was developed by Leon Festinger in 1957.  
According to Festinger (1957), individuals strive to maintain a consistency between pieces of knowledge.  When 
there is a discrepancy between attitudes and/or behaviors it is called dissonance.  The discomfort produced by 
dissonance urges the individual to make some adjustments to remove the discomfort.  Festinger (1957) argued 
that whenever cognition or beliefs are in conflict with behavior, the tendency is to modify or change behavior- but 
that is not always the case.  In some circumstances individuals continue to gather knowledge (or rationalization) 
rather than confront the dissonance. 



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A person is able to get to the root of personal biases through the process of analyzing and validating conflicting 
attitudes and behaviors that result from cognitive dissonance.  By recognizing biases, attitudes, and emotions 
towards others or certain issues, teachers will allow themselves to be open to grow and change with their students.  
What this means, is that in order to transform students, teachers should be open to their own transformations 
by challenging their own biases and assumptions.  Throughout the educational process, “teacher and students 
both have to be learners” (Shor and Freire, 1987: 33) and respect each other’s points of view.  Allowing students 
to pose questions and genuinely search with the students beyond the surface of an argument will open doors to 
new knowledge and growth.  Teachers need to confront the ever-present philosophical perplexities of questions 
like, “Who am I”? “Where do I come from?” “What do I believe and why do I believe it?” which are crucially 
relevant to being an effective and transformative teacher.  In summary, it is important for teachers to be aware 
that sometimes culture, society, and/or attitudes toward a given subject area could obstruct teaching, not only in 
terms of the depth and breadth of an issue, but more importantly in terms of intellectual growth for themselves 
and their students.

Another important point to consider in regard to these issues is the standpoint of the first year student and the 
extent to which general education and the humanities play a significant role in the transformative education that 
will contribute to the development of freshmen students into global citizens.  As it occurs with teachers, students 
have biases when they arrive at the university for the first time: they come with preconceptions, prejudices, 
assumptions, and expectations.  The “ritualized conversation” (Sleeter and McLaren, 1995) to convert students 
into citizens often uncovers a disconnect between students’ interests (shaped by their biases and expectations) 
and the subject of study (shaped by the teacher’s biases and values).  For the most part, students arrive at college 
filled with curiosity and an appetite for learning.  Soon after arrival, many students find themselves sitting 
passively in one classroom after another, listening while the teachers lecture to them.  Teachers accustomed to 
lecturing to students might not realize how futile the exercise actually is.  The practice wherein teachers deposit 
knowledge into students’ brains to be retrieved later has been called the “banking method” (Freire,1993).  For 
scholars such as Mezirow (1991), Banks (1966), Freire (1993), Shor (1992), Aronowitz and Giroux(1991) and 
others, the “banking” method of learning is not a responsible form of pedagogy because students accustomed 
to receiving knowledge passively (in order to regurgitate it upon being prompted) are not transformed through 
the process.  These students are not actually learning but collecting information that most likely will never be 
critically analyzed, but simply used again in the same form and shape as it was originally received.  

A transformed student is one that has gone through several experiences that have provoked a self-assessment 
process. This self-assessment is an analytical process that results in an attitude or value change.  Students that have 
gone through this process are more likely to be open to change, unafraid of challenges, respectful of others, and 
overall better leaders.  Part of the job of the faculty, then, is to facilitate that transformation.  The conscientious 
teacher should challenge conventional norms and knowledge by engaging in “problem-posing” (Freire, 1993) 
and genuine acts of critical thinking.  Students and teachers should engage in critical analysis through discussion 
of key issues, seeking to act in order to change society.  Education, as proposed by Freire (1993), Shor (1992), 
Aronowitz, Giroux (199) and others, is not only political, but it is also radical, liberating, and transformative 
because it challenges the status-quo and seeks to effect positive social change.

For Shor (1992) and Freire (1987), the teacher that takes into consideration the students’ cultures and 
includes the students’ voices in the discussion will learn with the students.  Students bring their perspectives to 
the classroom and are able to construct new, meaningful knowledge if empowered and encouraged to do so.  By 
identifying groups and engaging students in the teaching and learning process (for example, through becoming 
aware of cultural biases) teachers and students will hopefully discover the hurdles that impede growth and 
transformational learning. 

It is clearer than ever before that teachers’ attitudes, biases, and prejudices can negatively affect not only 
the learning process, but can also add to some students’ isolation.  It is obvious that bullying and a lack of 
sensitivity and empathy for students’ differences may push students to seek desperate measures.  The problem-



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posing approach to teaching and learning not only makes sense, but is transformational and promotes growth 
for teachers and students.

Transformational learning confronts cultural and political hurdles that affect teachers, students, and the 
institution.  In this day and age information on any subject is readily available through the internet, and so 
memorizing information in a subject area is no longer as necessary. Anyone can become “knowledgeable” on a 
topic within a few minutes by gathering information from different sources.  Nevertheless, only the student who 
is able to think critically will be able to process such a plethora of information in an efficient and competent 
manner.  What’s more, we also need to recognize that transformative education does not occur overnight; it is a 
process. I argue that for real (authentic) transformation to occur, both the teacher and the student must engage 
one another in a dialogue within the classroom that examines long held assumptions on a variety of issues.  
This transformation will not occur unless teachers engage in posing problems to students in a way that enables 
them to also recognize the extent to which education itself can be used as a means of simply reinforcing political 
ideologies and promoting cultural hegemony. To do this effectively, teachers should examine and evaluate their 
own biases, engage students in open and respectful dialogue, and be willing to allow opposing views as part of 
the discussion.

References

Aronowitz, S. & Giroux, H. A. (1991). Postmodern education: Politics, culture, & social criticism. Minneapolis: 
University of Minnesota Press.

Banks, J. A. (Ed.). (1996). Multicultural education, transformative knowledge, & action: Historical and contemporary 
perspectives. New York: Teachers College Press.

Festinger, L. (1957). A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance. Stanford, CA: Stanford University
 Press.

Freire, P. (1993). Pedagogy of the oppressed. (30th Anniversary ed.). New York: Continuum.

McIntosh, P. (1988). White privilege and male privilege: A personal account of coming to see correspondences through work 
in woman’s studies. MA: Wellesley College Center for Research on Woman.

Mezirow, J. (1991). Transformative dimensions of adult learning. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Shor, I. (1992). Empowering education: Critical teaching for social change. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Shor, I. & Freire, P. (1987). A pedagogy for liberation: Dialogues on transforming education. Westport, CT: Bergin and 
Garvey.

Sleeter, C. & McLaren, P. L. (Eds.). (1995). Multicultural education, critical pedagogy, and the politics of difference.  
New York: State University of New York Press.

Address Correspondences To:
Maribel V. Bird
Viterbo University, La Crosse WI
e-mail: mvbird@viterbo.edu


