Racial Identity Exercise

1. Take the IAT available here: IAT
Start with the Race IAT (Scroll down to the 10th test) and if you have time, take the Weapons IAT.

2. Watch the film (its about 6 minutes)

For both 1 and 2: Think about the results of the IAT and what the film shows: how do we learn about race and skin color? Did someone tell you to have a preference or not have a preference for a particular skin color? Did someone specifically tell the children in the film to have a preference for a particular skin color?

3. Read the chapter on White Racial Identity in Sue and Sue's Counseling the Culturally Different (xerox copies are in your mailbox) OR in the supplemental materials I gave you

4. Think of and identify where you are in Helm's model of White Racial Identity Development.

5. How do you think racial identity status can influence your clinical practice and your supervisory practice?


UPDATE: For those who are interested, you can go here to read posts on Implicit Attitudes. The right hand side column lists all the posts.

UPDATE 2: This is an instance of how the IAT can be relevant to our life

Muslim Mental Health

Journal of Muslim Mental Health is pleased to present the two-part thematic series~ "Islamic Religiosity: Measures and Mental Health" ~2007 Volume 2, Issue 2 & 2008 Volume 3, Issue 1

The Journal of Muslim Mental Health announces a two-part thematic series that introduces instruments measuring Islamic religious identity and examines intersections of religious identity and mental health. In light of the dearth of validated instruments for use with Muslims, this will be an essential reference volume for researchers and clinicians working with Muslim populations. Papers published in this series come from well-recognized authors from Australia, Egypt, Kuwait, Iran, Pakistan, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, and United States. Papers include conceptual reviews, reports on research results, and case study; see list of titles below.

Topic areas address the following:
1. Conceptual and practical challenges in defining and measuring Islamic religious identity
2. Psychometric properties of more than 10 modified and newly-developed instruments of religiousness and aspects of Muslim identity, measuring the constructs:
· Attitudes towards religion
· Religious commitment and general religiousness
· Questing and religious reflection
· Religious and theological knowledge
· Islamic moral values
· Fundamentalism
· Religious coping
· Perceived religious discrimination
· Religiosity in spousal selection and marital satisfaction
3. Examination of relationship between religious identity and mental health
4. Integration of religiosity in mental health counseling

For more information about the Journal of Muslim Mental Health and how to subscribe, please visit http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/titles/15564908.asp or contact journal@muslimmentalhealth.com

Accessibility and Disability Resources

This information was sent out in an email to POWR-L by Ken Pope.


Today I updated and expanded the "Assistive Technology for Computers &Printed Material" section of the *Accessibility & Disability Information & Resources in Psychology Training & Practice* web site.

This section provides descriptions of and links to software and hardwareresources that people with disabilities can use to work more effectivelywith computers or printed materials.
These assistive technologies include screen readers, talking webbrowsers, printed text readers, braille translators (text-to-braille and braille-to-text), text-to-voice software to put books into audio formats (for CDs, iPods, etc.), screen magnifiers, special computer keyboards,and technology that allows control of a computer through head movements or eye movements.

The Accessibility & Disability Information & Resources in Psychology Training & Practice web site is at:<http://kpope.com/> Please forward this announcement to any lists or individuals who mightbe interested in these resources.
Ken Pope

Articles on the Internet

How transgender women challenge feminism

If Women Were More Like Men: Why Females Earn Less and the original study is here Proving that women earn less

Children aware of White male monopoly on White House

(citation: University of Texas at Austin (2008, October 5). Children Aware Of White Male Monopoly On White House. ScienceDaily. Retrieved October 6, 2008, from http://www.sciencedaily.com­ /releases/2008/10/081005121335.htm).

A white muslim woman writes about what happened when she stopped wearing a hijab



1) CDC Finds Alcohol Taking Deadly Toll on Native Americans. http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5734a3.htm

2) The Way Home Tour is a national campaign planned for 2009 to support a collective healing of Native American peoples from the curse of “intergenerational trauma.” http://www.whitebison.org/TheWayHomeTourIndex.htm

3) Indian students are more than twice as likely to be paddled in school, according to a report being released on August 20, 2008. http://hrw.org/reports/2008/us0808/

4) Broken Justice in Indian Country. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/11/opinion/11duthu.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

5) October 8th, 2008 is Health Cares about Domestic Violence Day! The HCADV Day organizing packet will help you get started: http://www.endabuse.org/programs/display.php3?DocID=186.

6) Report Highlights Challenges of Combating Drug Traffickers Who Target Native American Communities July 21, 2008. http://www.jointogether.org/news/headlines/inthenews/2008/report-highlights-challenges.html

Looking at family of origin

Here is an assignment that can help you look at your family of origin and identifying what being "White" means.

"Ethnicity patterns our thinking, feeling, and behavior in both obvious and subtle ways, although generally we are not aware of it. It plays a major role in determining what we eat and how we work, relate, celebrate holidays and rituals, and feel about life, death, and illness." (McGoldrick, Giordano, & Pearce, 1996, p. viii)

This assignment is designed to sensitize us as future mental health professionals to the range of values (our own included) within our multicultural society. To begin with, please choose at least one chapter from the McGoldrick, Giordano, & Garcia-Preto, (1996) text that best reflects your own ethnic heritage. In this country, it is often an oversimplification to define one's identity as that of a single ethnic group. If yours is a multicultural family, and you are wondering which chapter to focus on, take into consideration that most often the mother sets the tone in the home and child-rearing. On the other hand, if the father is the parent with the strongest ethnic identification, his ethnicity might have the strongest influence in the family.

After reading the chapter or chapters most pertinent to you, write a paper/outline using points 1-10. Indicate insights you might have gained about your own values and preferences through reading the chapter(s). Speculate how these values and preferences might come into play as you assume the professional role of mental health professional (clinician, administrator, educator, or researcher).
1. Identify the culture to which you belong and the relationship of your group to that of individuals from other groups. Have knowledge of your heritage, for e.g., ethnicity, language, family’s immigration history.
2. Identify the specific cultural group from which you derive your fundamental cultural heritage and the significant beliefs and attitudes held by those cultures that are assimilated into your own attitudes and beliefs.
3. Identify specific attitudes, values, and beliefs from your own heritage and cultural learning that support behaviors that demonstrate respect and valuing of differences and those that impede or hinder respect and valuing of differences.
4. Identify at least 5 personal, relevant cultural traits and explain how each has influenced your cultural values.
5. Identify the history of your culture in relation to educational opportunities and its impact on your current worldview.
6. Articulate the beliefs of your own cultural and religious groups as these relate to sexual orientation, able-bodiedness, and so forth, and the impact of these beliefs in a counseling relationship.
7. Appreciate and articulate positive aspects of your own heritage that provide strengths in understanding differences.
8. Recognize and discuss your family's and culture's perspectives of acceptable (normal) codes of conduct and what are unacceptable (abnormal).
9. Recognize the cultural bases of your communication style, and the differences between your style and the styles of those different from themselves.
10. Identify cultural differences and expectations regarding role and responsibility in family, participation of family in career decision making, appropriate family members to be involved when seeking help, culturally acceptable means of expressing emotion and anxiety and so forth.

Note: Some of this assignment was excerpted from a similar assignment given by Dr. Flora Hoodin for EMU's ethics class. Points 1-10 are excerpted from the learning objectives outlined by Arredondo et al.

The IAT

I have found the Implicit Attitude Test (IAT) to be useful in starting a conversation about one's awareness around issues of race. What is the IAT? From their website:

It is well known that people don't always 'speak their minds', and it is suspected that people don't always 'know their minds'. Understanding such divergences is important to scientific psychology.
This web site presents a method that demonstrates the conscious-unconscious divergences much more convincingly than has been possible with previous methods. This new method is called the Implicit Association Test, or IAT for short.
In addition, this site contains various related information. The value of this information may be greatest if you try at least one test first...

Here is the link to the IAT. I'd recommend starting with the Race IAT.

Doll Test

Remember the "doll test” initially conducted by Dr. Kenneth Clark- it was used in Brown v. Board of Education for desegregation of schools. There is more information about this test at the following link: The original doll test

Kiri Davis reconducts the test in this film (2005). For more information about the film, check out: Kiri Davis Film


Watch the film