Bias Interrupted

CHAPTER 2

Is bias training worthless?

“Treat people as if they were what they should be, and you help them become what they are capable of.”

—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Bias training has gotten a bad rap recently. This chapter will describe a new approach to bias training that provides the foundation for the new DEI playbook.

One bad-rap study, published in 2006, has been so influential that it’s worth discussing in depth. Three sociologists—Alexandra Kalev, Frank Dobbin, and Erin Kelly—analyzed US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission data from more than 700 firms between 1971 and 2002, and examined whether certain common practices, including bias training, increased diversity. The study found that organizations that used diversity training ...