ABOUT THE KIRWAN INSTITUTE

At the Kirwan Institute, we work to create a just and inclusive society where all people and communities have opportunity to succeed.

 

The Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity is an interdisciplinary engaged research institute at  The Ohio State University.  We work toward achieving our mission by educating the public, building the capacity of allied social justice organizations, and investing in efforts that support equity and inclusion. Importantly, our research is designed to be actively used to solve problems in society. Research and staff expertise are shared through an extensive network of colleagues and partners—ranging from other researchers, grassroots social justice advocates, policymakers, and community leaders throughout the nation, who can quickly put ideas into action. As our model below depicts, we define opportunity very broadly encompassing all aspects of one’s life (red spheres).  Moreover, we work to understand and mitigate barriers to opportunity using two frameworks (grey spheres): Structural Racialization and Race and Cognition.

 

Kirwan Institute model

 

  • Structural Racialization refers to the ways in which both historical and contemporary policies and institutional practices contribute to and sustain racial disparities throughout our society.

  • Race and Cognition refers to how implicit and explicit mental processes – that are both altered by and contribute to racial inequities – affect individuals’ decisions, behaviors, and lived experiences.

We believe that by understanding these barriers to opportunity we can begin to take strategic steps toward finding solutions and achieving equity.

 

The Team Behind Kirwan’s Implicit Bias Research: