Prejudice In Children Research Articles

Prejudice in children and extremism in adults: Intriguing mindset convergences

In the literature on children’s interpersonal and intergroup relations, it is inappropriate to say a child is ‘racist’ even in the evidence of the White child refusing to sit near a Black peer in class, or vice versa, or allying with friends to bully that same peer at school. In such cases, this child’s behavior has been referred to as out-group prejudice. Racial prejudice is bound to develop into any of the multiple types of extremism. This article explores the similarities between the adult extremist mindset and children’s prejudice. We present the conceptual constituents of both the extremist mindset and prejudice, and then discuss the convergences between the two; we later present the convergences in the determinants of both extremism and prejudice. The exploration of such convergences allows us to posit that prejudice in childhood may be a marker for extremism in adulthood. The recommendation is therefore to incite researchers to look more into the prejudiced mindset in childhood as a potential marker of the adult extremist mindset, and intervention policy makers to look into factors that buffer the further development of children’s prejudiced mindset into extremist polarized views about the world.

Crisis and bias: Exploring ethnic prejudice among Chinese‐Dutch children before and during the COVID‐19 pandemic

AbstractInterethnic prejudice in children has been studied mostly among White and Black populations in the United States, but less among East Asian populations and Europe. Given that interethnic prejudice is sensitive to populations and contexts, research on previously neglected groups is needed. In the current study, interethnic prejudice is examined among Chinese‐Dutch children aged 7–11 years (N = 80, 42 girls and 38 boys), focusing on their preference for and rejection of East Asian, White, Southwest Asian and North African, and Black peers. In addition, interethnic prejudice is examined in relation to the COVID‐19 pandemic, a global crisis that has led to anti‐Asian racism. The results revealed that Chinese‐Dutch children evaluated their ethnic ingroup and the White outgroup most positively, and the Black outgroup least positively. Moreover, stronger ingroup affinity (in terms of lower ingroup rejection) among Chinese‐Dutch children was found during than before the COVID‐19 pandemic, highlighting the importance of situational influences on children's interethnic prejudice.

Believing that prejudice can change increases children's interest in interracial interactions.

Children begin interacting less across racial lines around middle childhood, but it remains unclear why. We examine the novel possibility that, at that time, children's prejudice theories-their understanding of prejudice as a fixed or malleable attribute-begin to influence their desire for interracial affiliation. We devise immersive behavioral experiences to evaluate when and how prejudice theories affect interracial affiliation. Study 1 measured prejudice theories among 8-13-year-olds (N=152; 76 White, 76 racial minority) and observed children in a newly-developed social interaction task. In line with our hypothesis, children older than 10 years with stronger malleable-prejudice theories exhibited more interest and affiliation in a simulated cross- (vs. same-race) interaction, regardless of their preexisting prejudice level. Study 2 randomly assigned children to listen to a fixed- or malleable-prejudice theory story before engaging in a real, first-time interaction with a same- or cross-race partner at a different school via live video-stream (N=150; 96 White, 54 racial minority). The malleable theory increased children's interest in further interaction with their cross-race partner. These findings highlight the promise of malleable-prejudice theories for sustaining positive interracial relationships during a critical developmental window-when the frequency of cross-race friendships typically declines.

Navigating diversity: Maternal ideologies and associations with child interethnic prejudice in the Netherlands

AbstractParental diversity ideologies are linked to their own interethnic prejudice, but how do they relate to children's prejudice? This study examined self‐reported endorsement of colorblind ideology and multiculturalism among mothers (138 White Dutch, 65 Turkish‐Dutch, and 45 Afro‐Dutch) of 6‐to 10‐year old children (55% girls), and its association with child interethnic prejudice. Endorsement of multiculturalism was lowest among White Dutch mothers, and endorsement of colorblind ideology was lowest among Afro‐Dutch mothers. Maternal endorsement of multiculturalism was negatively related to child outgroup prejudice among White Dutch families and among Turkish‐Dutch families in the context of underrepresented outgroups, and results suggest no or opposite associations for colorblind ideology. Future research should explore what parenting based on these ideologies looks like, but the present study points parents in the direction of a multicultural, rather than colorblind, approach.

Interethnic Prejudice Against Muslims Among White Dutch Children

Interethnic prejudice in children has been studied mostly in the United States, but less often in Europe, where the public discourse is increasingly negative about ethnic minorities, especially the Muslim minority. This study examined in-group favoritism (White preference) and out-group rejection of children of Middle Eastern descent (representing the Muslim minority) among White children in the Netherlands. Social preference for and rejection of children of Middle Eastern descent are compared with preference for and rejection of Black children. Social preference and rejection were measured using a task in which participants were presented with pictures of children with different ethnic appearances, and asked to select who they wanted to (not) play with, (not) sit next to, and invite for their birthday party. In addition, maternal implicit prejudice against people of Middle Eastern descent and explicit attitudes toward their children’s interethnic contact were assessed. The study included 140 children aged 6 to 8 years ( M = 7.26, SD = 0.77) and their mothers. The results reveal both in-group favoritism and out-group rejection. The Middle Eastern out-group was preferred less than the Black out-group. Reporting absolutely no reservations about children’s interethnic contact by mothers was associated with less rejection of children of Middle Eastern descent. Findings reveal that young children already show interethnic prejudice and that particularly people of Middle Eastern descent are devalued. The results show that maternal acceptance of child interethnic contact seems to play a role, and provide starting points for further investigation of the relation between parental and child interethnic attitudes.

RWAc and SDOc: The measurement of right‐wing authoritarianism and social dominance orientation in childhood

AbstractRight‐wing authoritarianism (RWA) and social dominance orientation (SDO) predict prejudice and discrimination in adults. To create analogous scales for children, we carried out four studies. First, we gave 112 adults from New Zealand (Study 1) and 146 adults from Turkey (Study 2) novel child‐appropriate measures of RWA and SDO, along with the standard adult measures. The two RWA measures correlated more highly with each other than with the SDO measures, and the two SDO measures correlated more highly with each other than with the RWA measures. Study 3 tested 75 children aged 6 to 12, finding acceptable to good reliability for the two child scales. Child RWA (RWAc) and SDO (SDOc) decreased significantly over age. SDOc correlated with maternal SDO and RWA, and RWAc correlated with children's racial bias. Study 4 examined the RWAc scale with 39 children aged 5 to 11 years. There was good reliability for the RWAc scale and a correlation with anti‐fat prejudice. Overall, the findings indicate that: (a) the scales are reliable, (b) SDOc correlates with parental attitudes, (c) RWAc correlates with children's prejudice, and (d) RWA and SDO are present early in life and decline with age.

Ethnic Prejudice in Children: The Role of Ethnic Socialization

Abstract The study aims to examine the influence of parent’s ethnic socialization, peer’s ethnic socialization, and school climate on children’s ethnic prejudice. This research was conducted in 3 cities: Bangkalan, Yogyakarta, and Medan. The population of this study was 11-14-year-old children. The data was collected in Islamic and public schools. A total of 453 children were involved in this study, comprising of 173 children from Bangkalan, 132 children from Yogyakarta and 148 children from Medan. The result confirms the hypothesis that parents’ ethnic socialization has a negative influence on children's ethnic prejudice. If children perceive that their parent’s attempt to propagate ethnicity-related attitude becomes more intensive, then their ethnic prejudice will decrease accordingly. This research also proves that there is an insignificant negative effect of peers' ethnic socialization on children's ethnic prejudice. This means that the presence of peers’ ethnic socialization has no impact on children's ethnic prejudice. The study also finds an insignificant negative effect of school climate on children's ethnic prejudice. Further explanation of the result will be discussed in this article. K eywords : Ethnic prejudice, children in Indonesia, ethnic socialization

Cultural Snapshots: A Method to Capture Social Contexts in Development of Prejudice and Stereotyping.

The scientific identification of how social environments transmit intergroup biases is a transparently complex endeavor. Existing research has examined the emergence of intergroup biases such as racial prejudice and stereotypes in many ways, including correlations between racial diversity and children's prejudice, content analyses of features in the media, or experiments testing the influence of selected variables with unknown prevalence in children's environments. Yet, these approaches have left unanswered how the social environments that children engage with cause them to acquire racial prejudice and stereotypes. We provide a review of the existing literature on socialization of racial prejudice and stereotypes and then present a methodological approach that can be used to quantify and test causal relations between the features of children's social environments and intergroup biases. We provide examples of how this method has and can be used alongside a discussion of unique considerations when applied to child samples.

We need to talk about racism

When we, as adults, are silent about race, are we in danger of re-inforcing racial prejudice in children? Encouraging conversaton about difference is important in countering racialised narratives.

A Chip Off the Old Block: Parents' Subtle Ethnic Prejudice Predicts Children's Implicit Prejudice.

The increasing flow of immigrants in many European countries and the growing presence of children from immigrant families in schools makes it relevant to study the development of prejudice in children. Parents play an important role in shaping children’s values and their attitudes toward members of other ethnic groups; an intergenerational transmission of prejudice has been found in a number of studies targeting adolescents. The present study aims to investigate the intergenerational transmission of ethnic prejudice in 3- to 9- year-old children and its relations to parenting styles. Parents’ blatant and subtle ethnic prejudice and parenting style are measured together with children’s explicit and implicit ethnic prejudice in pupils and parents of preschool and primary schools in the region of Rome, Italy (N = 318). Results show that parents’ subtle prejudice predicts children’s implicit prejudice regardless of the parenting style. Findings indicate that children might acquire prejudice by means of the parents’ implicit cognition and automatic behavior and educational actions. Implications for future studies and insights for possible applied interventions are discussed.

Introjeção de Normas Sociais e Expressão Indireta de Preconceito em Crianças

Este trabalho visa contribuir com o estudo da expressão indireta do preconceito contra negros em crianças considerando o papel da introjeção das normas sociais. Objetivou-se analisar a expressão indireta do preconceito em crianças de 5 a 10 anos de idade. Especificamente, avaliou-se expressão indireta do preconceito: 1) em função de três contextos de resposta; 2) em função da cor da pele; 3) comparando crianças de 5 a 7 anos versus 8 a 10 anos. Contou-se com a participação de 40 crianças de uma escola municipal da cidade de Maceió. Para comparar as variáveis envolvidas, foram realizadas técnicas de estatística descritiva e o teste de associação X2 (qui-quadrado). Os resultados indicaram que existe uma relação entre contexto e expressão do preconceito, que pode estar relacionada com as hipóteses da expressão indireta de preconceito racial. A faixa etária não pareceu exercer uma diferença significativa na expressão do preconceito. Concluiu-se que as crianças expressam preconceito de uma forma sutil e indireta, uma vez que o fazem somente quando existe uma justificativa para isso que não seja a cor da pele do alvo.

스토리텔링을 활용한 다문화 교육활동이 유아의 인종 편견 및 다문화 인식에 미치는 영향

스토리텔링을 활용한 다문화 교육활동이 유아의 인종 편견 및 다문화 인식에 미치는 영향

Multicultural Perspektives in Indonesian Sosial Studies and Student Prejudice Reduction

Children's prejudice is still s problem in the educational world. The importance of reducing children's prejudice through the teaching of multicultural perspectives in social studies education (IPS) is relevant to education in a multicultural perspectives is crucial to prevent Indonesian students from negative prejudice to other groups. The basic education conditions for reducing the development of student prejudice are democratic school environment, the teachers' role and schools' multicultural curriculum. Indonesian teachers can develop some instructional strategies which are appropriate to the problems related to the prejudice

The subtle–blatant distinction of ethnic prejudice among ethnic majority chidren

Research on ethnic prejudice among children is important for contemporary multicultural schools seeking to enhance communication among students from different ethnic groups and provide effective intercultural education. Current scientific discourse points to the appearance of new implicit forms of prejudice, witnessed in modern multicultural societies, while traditional explicit prejudice tends to decline. However, empirical studies concerning the blatant–subtle distinction of prejudice in children are scarce. This paper examines ethnic prejudice in 329 ethnic majority preadolescents (aged 10–13 years) attending 10 urban and rural schools in central Greece. Data were collected using questionnaires constructed on the basis of focus group discussions with children, in addition to sociometric tests. Findings support the subtle–blatant distinction of prejudice in children and indicate that although blatant prejudice expressed as personal rejection is indeed low, perceptions of ethnic minority groups as a ‘problem’ for school life, as well as subtle prejudice, are substantial. Ethnic minority children are less popular and stigmatizing behaviour is common. Intimacy with an ethnic minority classmate is associated with lower levels of blatant prejudice at the individual level but the other forms of prejudice are not affected.

Racismo como verbalismo? Delineamentos para compreensão da aquisição do racismo entre cegos congênitos

O artigo discute a questão da aquisição do racismo e do preconceito racial em crianças cegas congênitas. Está parcialmente fundamentado na perspectiva do antropólogo Lawrence A. Hirschfeld, estudioso da dimensão cultural da vida mental, pela ênfase que confere à linguagem na formação de conceitos raciais, em detrimento de indicadores visuais. O cerne do artigo reside em considerar algumas possibilidades alternativas para a construção de conceitos raciais e para a vivência do fenômeno do racismo que ora apontam para um padrão próprio aos cegos, ora apontam para um padrão semelhante ao dos videntes ou, ainda, para o mero artificialismo na vivência do racismo. Para esta alternativa, torna pertinente a introdução de uma discussão sobre relações de poder entre cegos e videntes numa sociedade visual, onde se observa que as condições sociais influenciam significativamente. O verbalismo se constitui num processo que parece acentuar a condição de subordinação dos cegos.

Developing teaching strategies for reducing children's prejudice - Based on indirect contact theories -

Developing teaching strategies for reducing children's prejudice - Based on indirect contact theories -

Automatic prejudice in childhood and early adolescence.

Four cross-sectional studies are presented that investigated the automatic activation of prejudice in children and adolescents (aged 9 years to 15 years). Therefore, 4 different versions of the affective priming task were used, with pictures of ingroup and outgroup members being presented as prejudice-related prime stimuli. In all 4 studies, a pattern occurred that suggests a linear developmental increase of automatic prejudice with significant effects of outgroup negativity appearing only around the ages of 12 to 13 years. Results of younger children, on the contrary, did not indicate any effect of automatic prejudice activation. In contrast, prejudice effects in an Implicit Association Test (IAT) showed high levels of prejudice independent of age (Study 3). Results of Study 4 suggest that these age differences are due to age-related differences in spontaneous categorization processes. Introducing a forced-categorization into the affective priming procedure produced a pattern of results equivalent to that obtained with the IAT. These results suggest that although children are assumed to acquire prejudice at much younger ages, automatization of such attitudes might be related to developmental processes in early adolescence. We discuss possible theoretical implications of these results for a developmental theory of prejudice representation and automatization during childhood and adolescence.

Prejudice against obesity among 10‐year‐olds: a nationwide population‐based study

Population-based research on children's possible prejudice against thin, obese and average body sizes is scarce. This study examined children's prejudice against various body sizes of both sexes. The effects of sex, body size, place of residence and socio-economic status (SES) on children's prejudice were also investigated. In 2005, a nationally representative sample of 10-year-old children (N = 1409) responded to a questionnaire measuring stereotypes and prejudice against thin, average-weight and obese silhouettes. As estimated by odds ratios (ORs), children were more likely to report prejudice against obesity (OR = 53, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 42-67) and thinness (OR = 20, 95% CI: 16-26) than against average body weight. The risk of being prejudiced varied with child's sex and with sex and body size of the silhouette figure. No association was found between own body weight and prejudice against various body sizes. Children with high SES were more likely to be prejudiced against obesity compared with children with low SES (OR = 1.2, 95% CI: 1.1-1.4). This large, population-based study showed that Swedish 10-year-old children hold stereotypical attitudes and are prejudiced against not only peers with obesity but also those with thin body sizes. Interestingly, no association was found between own body weight and prejudice against various body sizes.

Prejudice Reduction in Schools Teaching Tolerance in Schools: Lessons Learned Since Brown v. Board of Education About the Development and Reduction of Children's Prejudice

Prejudice Reduction in Schools Teaching Tolerance in Schools: Lessons Learned Since Brown v. Board of Education About the Development and Reduction of Children's Prejudice

Extended Contact through Story Reading in School: Reducing Children's Prejudice toward the Disabled

The aim of this study was to develop and assess a prejudice‐reduction intervention for young children based on a relatively recent psychological concept, extended contact. A number of extended contact interventions were tested based on different models of generalized intergroup contact. A 3 (type of extended contact: neutral, decategorization, and “intergroup”) × 2 (time of interview: pre‐ vs. post‐extended contacts) mixed design was used, with the latter variable being within participants. Non‐disabled children (N= 67) aged 5–10 years took part in a 6‐week intervention involving reading stories featuring disabled and non‐disabled children in friendship contexts. The main dependent variables were children's attitudes and intended behavior toward non‐disabled and disabled people. Results showed that extended contact led to increased positivity toward the disabled, and this was most pronounced in the intergroup‐extended contact condition. These findings suggest that extended contact can provide a prejudice‐reduction intervention tool that can be used with young children in contexts in which the opportunity for direct contact is low. The findings also add to the psychological literature, providing support of the Hewstone and Brown (1986)“intergroup” model in the context of extended contact.