Elkins awarded $370,000 grant to develop anti-bias curriculum

Aug. 27, 2024 — DENTON — The Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) has awarded Aaron Elkins, PhD, and two colleagues a $370,000 grant to develop a curriculum for universities and high schools that teaches students how to recognize their own biases when gathering information.

The trio aims to develop information literacy instruction that incorporates social-emotional literacy and cultural humility for universities and secondary schools.

“I was absolutely ecstatic when I found out we received the grant because I think that our interactions with and reactions to information is a big part of the polarization currently happening in society, where we have people living in entirely different information worlds,” Elkins said.

The project is a collaboration with former TWU colleague Rea Simons, PhD, and Elizabeth Burns, PhD, both of Old Dominion University. The $369,400 grant comes from the Laura Bush 21st Century Librarian Program.

“Our training as librarians in terms of teaching information literacy has always been purely focused on the cognitive side. You teach concepts like evaluating the authority of the source, checking the currency of the information, how many and what types of citations and references there are and then you make a decision about whether that source is credible or not,” Elkins said. “But that’s not how information works, especially not in the age of social media. Information is a psychosociocultural experience.”

Information can challenge beliefs, especially beliefs that are core to a person’s identity or sense of belonging, Elkins explained.

“My goal for this grant is to better understand the psychosociocultural nature of information and how those factors affect our interactions with information,” Elkins said.

Elkins, Simons and Burns want to create a more nuanced understanding of media information literacy and how to teach it with the goal of helping people have better awareness of their own reactions when they encounter correct information that may come from a source perceived to be less reliable.

The grant is for three years.

Page last updated 5:31 PM, August 27, 2024