The Culture Cycle: An Educational Tool for Discussing Structural Racism and Motivating Change

While structural and historical racism have long been pervasive in American society, public attention to these issues has grown in recent years. Enhanced dialogue around these critical issues is vital, but many Americans remain unaware of structural racism or misunderstand its nuances, potentially leading to harmful outcomes. The interdependence between individual and structural racism is often overlooked, creating a tradeoff between discussing structural racism, which allows for policy conversations but may reduce individual accountability, and discussing individual racism, which emphasizes individual responsibility but may neglect broader structural issues. To address this tradeoff, we investigated an educational intervention for elucidating the interplay between individuals and institutions in perpetuating structural racism. Study 1 utilized a within-subjects design to assess the impact of an educational video on participants' ability to recognize the multi-level manifestations of racism. Study 2 replicates and extends Study 1 with a between-subjects design and a change in content (i.e., hiring in a healthcare setting and the addition of a bias mitigation strategy in the intervention). Finally, Study 3 applies this intervention in a real-world context. This research additionally explores the potential moderating effects of political conservatism to identify which individuals may be open to the information presented in the intervention, and which individuals may not (see moderating effects of symbolic racism, social dominance orientation, threat of reverse racism, racial identification and just world beliefs in supplementary materials). By highlighting the interconnected roles that individuals and institutions play in perpetuating systemic issues, this research aims to motivate participants to adopt practices across all levels of the culture cycle that contribute to rectifying inequalities.