Exploring Racism in Virtual Reality

Background and Purpose. The Social Work Grand Challenge of “achieving equal opportunity and justice” will require an improved collective understanding of racial injustice and unequal opportunities. Achieving this goal includes shifting away from locating the problems of racial inequality in the bodies and cultures of the oppressed and toward grounding our understanding (and interventions) in the actions of institutions and other structures. The rhetoric identifying structural factors in social and racial inequality still too often misaligned with the focus of pedagogy, policy and practice (e.g. social work, public health, medicine). The current project explores the use of virtual reality in changing the ways individuals feel about and engage issues of racism. Specifically, the study uses an immersive virtual reality experience (IVR) to allow users to embody a Black male avatar, “Michael Sterling,” who encounters racism in different forms as a child, adolescent and adult. The project essentially tests whether walking in the “digital shoes” of a Black male creates a visceral experiences that shifts the ways individuals engage racism. The paper presentation will focus primarily on the transdisciplinary approach employed in the development of the IVR experience as well as in the integration of the experience into an MSW Foundations course. A secondary focus of the presentation will be to discuss preliminary findings from a pilot study employing the IVR experience.   

Method. The IVR experience was developed in collaboration between teams based at the Columbia School of Social Work and the Stanford School of Communications, integrating social work, psychology, and computer science/virtual reality. Employing a transdisiplinary approach, the teams established a common problem (representing racism in a virtual experience) and engaged in an iterative development process, integrating multiple disciplinary perspectives and data sources to design the IVR experience. In a recently completed empirical study, a multi-racial sample of first year MSW students enrolled in a Power Racism Oppression and Privilege course were randomly assigned to also complete the IVR experience (treatment, n = 65) or only the course (n = 97). Measures of racial empathy, implicit racial bias and ability to engage in structural analysis of race-related content (e.g. racist events in the media) were assessed at three time points pre and post treatment. 

Results. For the current project, a transdisciplinary approach was critical to developing a meaningful and visceral experience of racism in virtual reality. While the empirical data are still undergoing analysis, it is evident from the 1000s of people run through the experience at various public and private events that walking in the shoes of Michael Sterling becomes less of an abstraction and more of a deeply personal encounter.   

Conclusions and Implications. We will learn more in the coming months about the practical implications for using virtual reality as a component to graduate Social Work education. In the years to come, we will also learn more about the potential for using virtual reality in service of structural and cultural transformation. This innovative project pushes the boundaries of anti-oppressive and anti-racist pedagogy.