Change constrained

A single session (or a short course) of ‘unconscious bias’ training is ineffective in changing personal practice.  Briefly helping us see how we may inadvertently act out forms of discrimination doesn’t reduce the levels of it others experience.  This appears to be what research now shows. 

Perhaps we emerge from this sort of brief training a little self conscious and thus simply less agile and adept, perhaps somehow slightly wrong-footed by what feels like a moral judgement on our instinct to be fair, perhaps even nudged into a level of denial.

Perhaps it is because the bias isn’t just, or even chiefly, sitting unnoticed in our heads or habits at all, but is woven into what we go on assuming are the neutral norms of the language and values around us – the obvious examples are the qualities and qualifications sought in a recruitment process, which might stereotypically describe the sorts of men who have traditional filled a role, or the level of academic achievement more accessible to those brought up with greater social or financial advantage.

The discovery took me back twenty-five years to being in my mid-30s.  I was working full-time on the in-service training of clergy across a large diocese, and it dawning on me that many of the sessions I organised or signposted people towards stood little chance of ‘undoing’ either an individual’s ‘formation’ or, more problematically, the tight expectations, historical constraints, structures and reward systems within which they operated.

I certainly observed many of those who had had perhaps eight years of ordination discernment, systematic pre-ordination training, and a supervised initial curacy appointment, quickly revert in their first incumbency appointment to previous instinctive approaches to ministry heavily corralled by the constraints of the accountability and framework of incumbent role and the unrecognised influence of the entrenched language and values around them.  To be clear, I had been one of those (and, in many ways still am).

Forms of ‘ministerial development review’ were becoming fashionable and I became hungry for opportunities to tabulate the results.  A limited part of this would have been to identify any recurring themes.  But the aim would then not be to revise the programmes we provided or commended, but to ask the question ‘What changes in things like accountability, affirmation, terms and conditions and reward systems might mitigate these concerns or propagate healthy alternatives?’. 

This wasn’t the approach which commended itself – and I moved back into parish ministry rather than renew my contract for a second five year term.  I recognise that no over-committed and highly ably-experienced senior staff was ever likely to welcome a self-congratulatory junior member of the training team pursue such a major and critical policy redesigning role.

All of which also milled around in my mind when Radio 4 brought me this week late into the game of Jackson Katz’s theories about how to solve the problem of male violence.  He is clear that everything from glass-ceilings to rape are not ‘women’s problems’ but problems for the men who most usually have been in positions of power and authority.  He is also clear that waiting for individual men clearly to transgress and then put them on remedial offending courses is as likely to be effective as ‘unconscious bias’ training has turned out to be.

He commends instead early work with young men on recalibrating what counts in ‘a culture of manhood’, and serious mentoring as they grow into relational responsibilities.  Which creates the echo in my mind of the possibilities of clergy support and in-service training which stays very closely alongside the ‘upside down’ kingdom thinking – constantly reframing language and expectations around it and supportively accompanying those exploring the implications of it.

And, to take a different but related tack, I’m suddenly weary suspecting that I recognise the same dynamic in the discipleship lay-development scheme I now see being developed around me.

I’ve focussed before on Setting God’s People Free (2017) asking about being “equipped to integrate regular patterns of Sunday (and weekday) worship, personal devotion, Bible reading and other practices of faith with the demands of family life, finances, personal relationships, politics, media and consumerism”.

And now I tabulate the three dozen example questions provided for someone seeking to make pledges in a whole Rhythm of Life approach, more than half of which are about personal prayer and well-being.  To take one example, Finance is twice mentioned - in relation to giving to the church (strikingly, the only reference to church among the examples) and to charity – with no nudge towards questions about how faith might impact on our consumerism, how we invest out money or how we trade fairly.