Abstract
Fostering inclusive attitudes among children in host classrooms is key to integrating refugee children. A field experiment tests the prejudice reduction effects of a teacher-led activity integrating imagined intergroup contact and normative influence. To enhance the effectiveness of imagined contact, scenarios include supportive ingroup norms. In 29 classes, 545 children ( Mage = 10.88, SD = 0.96) were randomly assigned to one of five conditions: standard imagined contact, imagined contact encouraged by family, class peers, or religious ingroups, or a control. Children in all norm-framed imagined contact conditions had significantly less antirefugee bias compared with the control. The class-peer norm frame significantly reduced affective and cognitive facets of bias. The family norm frame reduced affective bias, and the religious norm frame reduced cognitive bias. Standard imagined contact did not differ from the control. Potential mediating pathways are explored. These findings illustrate the utility of incorporating norms into imagined contact interventions to reduce antirefugee bias among schoolchildren.
Highlights
The global refugee crisis has given rise to increased international diversity but further provoked the burgeoning anti-immigrant sentiment which has been growing since the beginning of the century
The present research integrates theories of normative influence and imagined intergroup contact to test a novel intervention with school children: norm-framed imagined contact
We demonstrated that the ability of norm-framed imagined contact to reduce antirefugee bias is largely independent of the influence of other variables tested, the effects of the class condition were partially mediated by intergroup anxiety for both facets of antirefugee bias
Summary
The global refugee crisis has given rise to increased international diversity but further provoked the burgeoning anti-immigrant sentiment which has been growing since the beginning of the century. Perceptions of discrimination can present a barrier to the societal integration of immigrants such as refugees (Berry, 1997). Though intergroup relations between refugees and the host society may not be characterised by explicit derogation, ingroup favouritism may be prevalent and experienced as discrimination by refugees, impacting their sense. As children confront a rise in the presence of refugees in the classroom, it is pertinent to identify measures which can be implemented in schools to combat the tendency towards intergroup bias. The present research integrates theories of normative influence and imagined intergroup contact to test a novel intervention with school children: norm-framed imagined contact
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