Here's the abstract for peer-reviewed paper that I presented at an International Peace conference in Bosnia last October. (400 Attendees from 35 countries.)

The infection of unconscious negative bias kills the peacemaker in children.

By Gregory D. Watson, M.S. Ed., Ed.M., Ed.D. (ABD) 

The dictatorial nature of culture is insidious (E.T. Hall). A social psychologist at Stanford University, Jennifer L. Eberhardt, conducts research on racism and inequality.  In her book, Biased, she tells the heart-wrenching story of her 5-year-old’s prejudice against her own race, shocking her to realize that racism is a silent disease in the culture that no one escapes because it is ubiquitous, stealthy, and unconscious.  Our education systems amplify the segregation of “us and them” by teaching us mostly about our own group, while the reality of “only us” escapes us. 

Watson’s paper presents bias as a positive and highly evolved normal brain function— unconscious and automatic—originally designed for our survival.  Its liability is seen when the pernicious qualities of racism, jingoism, and xenophobia arise from the wrong information we unconsciously associate with what we see—information originally fed invisibly to us from our culture. The new brain science (Damasio, et.al.) reveals that what we see in the face of the “other” is unconsciously mediated by 6 times (6x) as much information from our past (memories/associations) as from what appears right in front of us.  This is prejudice—for worse or for better. 

The paper asserts that, because of this 6x factor, it is logical to assume that an overarching spiral curriculum (K-12), based on accurate knowledge of human reality (via science, evolutionary history, and direct intercultural exchange and interaction) has the potential to enable the human brain to “see” oneness as well as it sees differences—albeit this will take a consciously-applied and sustained effort over time, since “differentiation” is the brain’s primary default mode for learning. (It is the brain’s job to make distinctions—to see differences.)  Beyond the conception of oneness, deceptively simple in popular discourse, is the possibility of a profound perception of oneness.  Theoretically, this is simple.

The paper advocates “oneness education” as the necessary complement to “diversity education,” making their combination a new paradigm for peace education. The paper invites schools around the world to become incubators for systems-based model building, utilizing a new conceptual framework for identity formation, enabling children to know themselves first as a human being—to know what IS a human being—before identifying with their race, nationality, or tradition and thus becoming alien to one another.