Nilanjana Dasgupta, Ph.D.
Provost Professor of Psychology and the founding Director of the Institute of Diversity Sciences at the University of Massachusetts Amherst
Jerry Kang
Ralph and Shirley Shapiro Distinguished Professor of Law and Distinguished Professor of Asian American Studies at the UCLA School of Law
Change the Wallpaper: Transforming Cultural Patterns to Build More Just Communities
BONUS AFTER-HOURS EVENT: Attendees who purchase a copy Change the Wallpaper from FAN’s partner bookseller The Book Stall are invited to attend an AFTER-HOURS event hosted by Dasgupta that will start immediately after the webinar. Details on the webinar registration page.
How can ordinary people fight for social justice? Can individual actions change structural inequality? In Change the Wallpaper: Transforming Cultural Patterns to Build More Just Communities, social psychologist Nilanjana Dasgupta, Ph.D., offers a science-driven approach to achieving social change, arguing that small changes to the “wallpaper”—the local cultures around us—are far more effective in producing structural change locally than seeking change through bias awareness training, symbolic acts, or relying solely on good intentions.
By integrating knowledge across diverse fields—including psychology, neuroscience, education, sociology, economics, public health, urban studies, cultural geography, and landscape architecture—Dasgupta shows how attitudes and beliefs take root in our mind based on what we see and hear every day. This wallpaper nudges our behavior to create or reinforce small inequalities that go unnoticed and accumulate over time. Disrupting these patterns and habits requires creating opportunities for social mixing across lines of difference, allowing new relationships to form, and promoting a better understanding of unfamiliar others’ experiences, followed by organizing and collective action. Together, these types of experiences and actions bring real change within our reach—in workplaces, in neighborhoods, in cities and towns. Dasgupta provides fresh, actionable approaches for everyone interested in working toward justice for all.
Dasgupta is a Provost Professor of Psychology and the founding Director of the Institute of Diversity Sciences at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She will be in conversation with Jerry Kang, the Ralph and Shirley Shapiro Distinguished Professor of Law and Distinguished Professor of Asian American Studies at the UCLA School of Law.
This event suitable for youth 12+. It will be recorded and available on FAN’s website and YouTube channel.
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Provost Professor of Psychology and the founding Director of the Institute of Diversity Sciences at the University of Massachusetts Amherst
Jerry Kang
Ralph and Shirley Shapiro Distinguished Professor of Law and Distinguished Professor of Asian American Studies at the UCLA School of Law
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