Abstract:

Discrimination is an important problem that still is present nowadays in our society. It can be based on race, ethnic, social level, gender, appearance or sensorial diversity. This social phenomenon can be obvious in different context such as the educational environment. At the university, discrimination can make that people reduce their academic performance and physical and psychological wellbeing. The Bologna Process proclaims the maintenance of the principles of non-discrimination and equitable access into the European Space for Higher Education (ESHE), and that higher education should reduce inequalities and provide with skills and competences to achieve these principles (London Communiqué, 2007). Therefore, in order to reach satisfactorily this aspect, it turns out essential to count on didactic strategies that make possible reduce any kind of discrimination into the higher educational level. We consider that didactical innovations derived from social psychology research could contribute to promote the equality principles. Specifically, we underline the relevance of priming techniques to reduce discrimination and propose a program that could be used with students and the staff. Priming techniques allow to know the uncouncious stereotypes application that people make and how these stereotypes frequently turn into subtle discrimination. A program to intervene in order to reduce discrimination using priming techniques should include three different stages. At the stage 1, people would carry out the priming task, which implies the subliminal presentation of any social category (women-man, gypsy-white, poor-rich, etc.) and later the presentation of stereotypes traditionally assigned to each category. This presentation is combined, hence, that the 50% of the essays, the presentation of the stereotypes are congruent with the category (e.g., woman-kind) and the another 50% are incongruent (e.g., woman-robust). A shorter response in the congruent essays shows that the individual is performing stereotypically. At the stage 2, feedback of the results is provided to the participant, in order to make them aware of their response tendency. At this stage, people should participate in egalitarian education course which promote equality, fair, equitable and non-discrimination principles. At the stage 3, the priming task will be performed again in order to corroborate the effects of egalitarian education. This intervention program on discrimination would contribute to the acquisition of the required skills and competences that our society demands for a more just, equal and safety world.

Keywords:

Discrimination, equality, priming techniques, didactical innovations.