An exercise in diversity awareness from The Poynter Institute
Your Name:
Conditions of Difference are components that shape the human experience. As journalists we must become smarter about differences and learn to understand and accept them as they are. This wheel can help you explore issues of difference in several important ways:
The difference wheel illustrates 12 basic conditions of difference we have in the United States for codifying people and their experiences.
The inner core, "early history/mental models" is the individual's core experiences that formulate an individual’s thinking.
The outer circles, change with some frequency, but categorize the individual nonetheless. Under each section of the wheel, write specifics about yourself or the person you are interviewing.
* The difference wheel is an effective interviewing exercise that allows journalists to see some personal and revealing areas of understanding. When used during an interview, it could afford more insightful and meaningful reporting.
* The difference wheel can help focus our attention on under covered communities and groups that exist in ostensibly homogeneous groups.
Download a PDF worksheet:
Conditions of Difference 
