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Intercultural Practice and Equity · Foundations
How assumptions travel from a quick judgment into a routine, into a standard, and into the lives of people who never met you.
40–45 minutes · 4 lessons · Voluntary learning
Assumptions live in three places: a quick reading, a routine that repeats it, and a standard nobody questions. Only one of those is about a person.
Six entry points, every one of them ordinary: how the question was framed, who was in the room, what counted as evidence, the default, the criteria, and the exception path.
Four ordinary shortcuts — looking for what fits, remembering the vivid case, anchoring on the first number, and never noticing who is missing from the data.
Five questions before a consequential decision, and the difference between reassuring people and repairing something.
Choose one decision you will make or shape in the next few weeks that affects people outside this building. Write the five questions beside it before you decide, and keep the answers where a colleague can see them.
Most bias training asks you to find the flaw in yourself. This module asks a different question: where do assumptions actually do their damage in a public system? Usually not in one person's head, but in a default nobody chose, a criterion nobody revisited, a number that measured only the people the process already worked for. You will practice locating an assumption in three places, walk a decision to find where assumptions enter it, test evidence that confirms what you already believe, and build a short pause-and-question routine you can use before your next consequential decision. Nothing you write here is collected.
Bias in a public system is rarely a person's verdict. It is a default nobody chose, a criterion nobody revisited, and a number that counted only the people the process already worked for.
Keep the five questions and the shape of repair in reach while you set criteria, write a notice, design a measure, review a request or change a policy.
Write the five questions beside your next consequential decision, before you make it, and give the answers to one colleague who will push on the weakest one.
Participation and course completion in this program do not count toward DHS-required training credits unless management, a director, or DHS leadership expressly approves an exception.
The design reference for this curriculum: multiple ways to engage, plain language, learner choice and no forced disclosure.
Source of the intercultural development continuum (denial, polarization, minimization, acceptance, adaptation, integration) named in this module. The assessment itself is licensed and administered by qualified administrators; this program uses the continuum as a framework for content, never as a score or record about any person.
A public-sector method for asking structured questions before a decision is made rather than after; the basis for the pause-and-question approach in Lesson 4.
National standards for culturally and linguistically appropriate services, including governance, workforce, communication and accountability expectations for organizations.
Guidance on who is represented in administrative data, what it leaves out, and how to report findings honestly — the basis for Lesson 3.
Minnesota's advisory council on disability policy, accessibility and rights, and a public source for state accessibility expectations.
Minnesota's plan and public reporting on integrated, self-determined lives for people with disabilities, including measurable commitments and accountability.
Federal information on obligations under the Americans with Disabilities Act; used here to keep legal requirements clearly distinct from optional learning.