The role of contact and perceived attitudes of surroundings in children’s acceptance of “different” peers

Abstract

This study was conducted with Croatian fourth grade students (N=691) that were divided into two groups. The characters presented in vignettes had some type of stigmatizing feature (e.g., Roma nationality, wheelchair usage, or being overweight) in the experimental group, while these features were left out in the comparison group. The first goal was to examine the impact of each stigmatizing feature on the non-acceptance of the described characters. The second goal was to analyze the relationship between the non-acceptance of the stigmatized character and children?s established contact with people with similar features, as well as the relationship between the afore-mentioned and the perceived attitudes of parents and friends. Roma ethnicity had a significant influence on non-acceptance of the character, while contact was related to an increase in the level of non-acceptance of the Roma character. Negative perceived opinions of friends regarding individuals with stigmatizing features (regardless of the type) were related to a lower level of acceptance of that character.