An Integrative Approach to Changing Children’s Intergroup Attitudes

Abstract

Abstract The words of Rashne, a refugee seeking asylum in the United Kingdom, indicate that prejudice is not uncommon on the school playground. This is in line with psychological research that has found unfavorable intergroup attitudes in several domains including ethnicity, gender, nationality, and disability (see Abrams, Rutland, & Cameron, 2003; Krajewski & Hyde, 2000; Powlishta, Serbin, Doyle, & White, 1994). Attempts have been made to tackle these attitudes using school-based interventions (e.g., Salzman & D’Andrea, 2001), but these programs are often ineffective (see Bigler, 1999, for reviews), perhaps because interventions are often designed without any consideration of psychological theories and research findings (Aboud & Levy, 2000; Bigler, 1999; Oskamp, 2000; Stephan, 1999). In this chapter we maintain that prejudice-reduction interventions should incorporate psychological theories. Moreover, in order to be effective, they should consider theories and research findings from both social and developmental psychology.