Using Lyfta to drive attitude change

The students at this school were all from white British heritage, and had had little opportunity to experience living alongside people from diverse backgrounds or to explore the world beyond their local area. We developed a simple attitudinal survey which could be used with the students before and after using Lyfta with them to explore the world. Students were asked to consider 6 faces of people whom they would meet over the course of their exploration of the platform, and were asked “which of these people do you feel you have most common ground with?”

In the first survey, students said that they felt they had most in common with person 1,4 and 6. These were the people that look most like them in their experience. By the end of their time exploring the different environments and ‘meeting’ the people in the pictures through powerful short short documentary films, they were asked to respond again to the question about common ground. Across the board, the students felt they had more in common with all of the people, and in particular, those that had scored lower in the first survey – person 2, 3, and 5. Most remarkable was the shift in affinity with one particular person. Person number 5, Muhammed, a Palestinian taxi driver in his 50s, who, at the end of the session, was rated the favourite person that they had learned about. The children were keen to know if they might be able to meet him in real life one day.

Through this simple and powerful exercise, the teacher was able to start an important conversation with her students around difference, bias, diversity and more. She was able to provide them with an impactful and engaging experience, which will have a lasting effect.