2.1. Web sites providing additional lesson plans and educational materials:

New York Times Daily Lesson Plans include several excellent lesson plans dealing with - mostly racial - stereotypes. Go to http://www.nytimes.com/learning and type in the search field: "racial stereotypes".

NYT offers also an excellent collection to testimonials by young people from all over the world. They offer moving and insightful answers to the question: "What does race mean in today's world? Share your thoughts and experiences, and read selected answers from students around the globe." See: http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/specials/race/questionnaire.html

Courttv.com offers an excellent set of lesson plans under the title "Opening the Door to Diversity" Each lesson is accompanied by a short and extrmely thoughtful video clip (see: http://www.courttv.com/diversity/content_page.html. For example: Lesson 4: Understanding Stereotypes; Lesson 5: Examining Media Images; Lesson 6: Identifying Stereotypes in the News. Additionally, each lesson plan comes with a list of materials, procedures, and extension activities.

2.2. Web sites documenting various forms of stereotyping:

Stereotypes in comics: http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/4740/cx.html (Cultural Propaganda and Stereotyping in Children's comics). This is dissertation written from a left-leaning, critical perspective. Useful for advanced students and teachers).

Stereotypes, television, and child's development: http://www.urich.edu/~psych/tvgenethmain.html. A useful, brief introduction: The Effects of Television on a Child's Development: Gender/Ethnic Stereotypes.

Stereotypes and genocide: http://www.remember.org/History.root.stereotypes.html. Original synopsis: "Genocide is the ultimate expression of hatred and violence against a group of people. This chapter traces the steps by which a group becomes the target of prejudice, discrimination, persecution and violence. The general concepts of stereotypes, scapegoats, prejudices, and discrimination are explored in a manner which will enable students to understand behavior and to condemn such behavior which is inappropriate in a modern, pluralistic society". This web site contains definitions and discussions of basic concepts, useful glossary, variety of activities, discussion questions, evaluation, and teaching strategies.

2.3. Web sites providing definitions:

http://www.remember.org/History.root.stereotypes.html

2.4. Web sites with debates on stereotyping:

http://racerelations.about.com/library/weekly/aa010900a.htm?once=true&

Web project of the Southern Poverty Law Center: Tolerance.org

Kimberly Hohman in "The Only Stupid Question is the One You Don't Ask"
provides a useful introduction:

" "Why do white people smell like wet dogs when they come out of the rain?"

"Why is it that you see more men and women of color racing in athletics than white men and women?"

"Why do so many Indians have that distinct odor?"

Shocked? Sounds like something dear old mom would have pinched me for saying as a child. Surely mature people wouldn't ask these kinds of questions in mixed company. Would they? You bet they would! And that is exactly what they're hoping for at a website called Y? The National Forum On People's Differences. Y? is the two-year old, award-winning creation of Philip J. Milano, and it was designed with one purpose in mind, to get people talking about their differences.

Milano came up with the idea when he posed his own less-than-politically-correct question to an African-American friend of his. "I'm wondering, when I see these black hosts on urban talk shows, how come they always seem to be acting almost too black? I mean, everything's, you know, 'Yo, wassup' and 'So and so's inna house' and 'He da bomb.' What's that all about?" When he received an honest and patient response rather than a swift right to the jaw, the wheels started turning and he asked himself the next question: "What if people had a non-lethal way of asking those mightily embarrassing questions they've always wanted to ask but never do for fear of being called out as a racist or homophobe?" And with that Y? was born, with the hopes that others would follow suit, asking their own burning questions and getting honest, thoughtful responses. Philip Milano dares us to ask and answer.

How it Works: Readers are invited to pose questions to the forum via an online form. The questions are then intercepted by Y? and may be edited for brevity, clarity or appropriateness to the general audience. Don't think 'censored', think 'non-confrontational'. As one reviewer put it, "Milano reviews all the questions and answers posted to the site for readability and length - and he often paraphrases reader questions in order to get to their essence." Once the question is posted, Y? solicits responses from persons of the demographic the question addresses. Like the questions, the responses are subject to editing by the Y? staff and then posted to the forum.

Anyone is invited to post questions and responses, but they do require that posters "include an identifier (name, initials, handle, alias) and where you live with your answer" there are also optional demographic fields including, but not limited to gender, race, occupation and educational level, which posters are encouraged to fill out. The forum's FAQ points out that these additional demographics help to "add context" to the posts."

2.5. Web sites providing educational materials on studying and combating stereotypes

University of Denver: http://www.du.edu/ctir/pubs_culture.html Offers: Teaching About Cultural Awareness, George Otero with Gary Smith CTIR, revised 1994, $29.95 (Comb-bound with reproducible student handouts. Grades 5-12). Publisher's description: "The activities in this book are based on the idea that preconceptions and lack of interactions limit our views of other cultures. The general goals of the activities in this book include increasing awareness of international differences, helping students become aware of diversity of ideas and practices, and recognizing their own cultural perspectives. Activities include: "Behind our Eyes," "You Kids are All Alike," "Groups and Social Distance," and "An Ethnic TV Guide."

Stereotypes in the media: http://www.media-awareness.ca/eng/med/class/teamedia/stereoe.htm. This extensive and very useful site (Teaching Media - Elementary (Grades K to 8): Stereotyping) provides teachers and students with (1) teaching lessons and units, (2) ideas for classroom activities, and (3) supporting resources.

Conflict Management and Constructive Confrontation: A Guide to the Theory and Practice. http://www.colorado.edu/conflict/peace/treatment/fixstereo.htm is a web site that provides a lot of useful information on various strategies of overcoming stereotypes. It has been produced by the Conflict Research Consortium, University of Colorado, International Online Training Program on Intractable Conflict.

Harold Saunders describes four stages of the peace-building process. All involve questioning stereotypes and replacing them with more accurate understandings of the opposing group(s). This must occur at all levels--from official negotiation to public dialogue to the re-establishment of a civil society. See: http://www.colorado.edu/conflict/peace/example/saun7270.htm

An Integrated Unit on Cultural Stereotyping (From Teaching Units on Individual and Society in East Asia, Oregon International Council, pp.39-48). Access at: http://www.askasia.org/frclasrm/lessplan/l000048.htm

Preparer: Zall Villanueva
School and District: Wyatt School and District
Grade Level and Subject: 5th/6th grades; all subjects
Projected Class Time: About 2 weeks

This is how this material is introduced: "During the course of the 1994-1995 school year, my focus on the development of lesson plans for the completion of my participation in the OIC summer program changed. Three new students came into my classroom who were able to speak no English and who had previously lived in another culture. Although this culture was not from an Asian country, I noticed that the similarity of their inter-relationship with the students from the American culture was similar to that students from Asian cultures have experienced in this country. I decided to develop a set of lesson plans that would both ease the transition of my new ESL students into their new culture as well as enable my old students to develop a non-biased attitude towards their new classmates. Using some of the resources received during the summer institute, I have developed a set of lesson plans that proved quite useful to all of my students. Racial bias and stereotyping is typical of any culture, regardless of whether it be Asian, American, European, or ??????"

2.6. Websites providing more advanced analyses of stereotyping (for teachers and advanced students (Grades 10-12).

http://www.psych.nwu.edu/folks/bodenhausen/research.htm Social Cognition Laboratory, led by Prof. Galen Bodenhausen of the Northwestern University. The site provides links to a set or professional articles on stereotyping and other issues of social cognition. The authors' present one of the main themes of their work: "The central theme of most of our work concerns the determinants and mechanisms of stereotypic influences on social perception, judgment, behavior, and memory. We are interested in understanding how the stereotypes we hold of various social groups influence (often in very subtle ways) how we think about, evaluate, and treat members of these groups. Among the questions that we have researched: (1) When do stereotypes get activated in our minds? Do they always come to mind when we meet members of stigmatized groups? (2) Once activated, how are stereotypes used in guiding attention, inference, and judgment? (3) To what extent can people control the processes of stereotype activation and application? If people want to avoid being prejudiced, how can they succeed?"

http://www.hum.uva.nl/images/index.html IMAGES: a site dedicated to the critical study of national identity and national stereotypes. See, in particular: "Images - information - national identity and national stereotype." The site is prepared by Prof. Joep Leerssen professor of Modern European Literature at the University of Amsterdam. The goals of this site are described as follows: "Images is a website dedicated to the critical and historical study of the purported 'character' which societies and nations ascribe to each other and to themselves. This analysis of intercultural imagery, of ethnic stereotyping and of the discursive construct called 'national identity' is known in French, German and Dutch as imagologie. It originated as a specialism in Comparative Literature and in social psychology. In English, the term "Image Studies" is often used in preference to 'imagology'."

http://www.tiac.net/users/thaslett/m_diawara/blackface.html The Blackface Stereotype by Manthia Diawara. An essay on the blackface stereotype through a photographer's lens.

http://www.colorado.edu/conflict/peace/example/wehr7488.htm Reality Reconstruction Workshops. A description (with bibliography) of an ambitious approach to conflicts based on stereotypes. Trainers try "to sensitize participants to the problem "realities" faced by, especially the constraints on, their opponents."