Download Difference and Diversity

Prejudice formation in
children
Dr Louisa Jones
Birmingham Educational Psychology Service
To provide an overview of what prejudice is
and what theories exist on its formation in
children.
To explore factors in our community (local,
national and global) that may impact on a
child’s prejudice formation
What is Prejudice?
“Thinking ill of others without sufficient warrant” (Allport,
1954)
“an organised predisposition to respond in an
unfavourable manner toward people from an ethnic
group because of their ethnic affiliation” (Aboud, 1988;
p. 4)
“ethnic, racial, and national prejudice can be defined as
a negative orientation toward individuals or groups due
only to their ethnic or racial group membership or
nationality” (Raabe & Beelmann, 2011)
Prejudice development
• Children can differentiate among people based on racial cues from a
very early age.
• By 4 most children’s racial awareness enables them to distinguish
explicitly among members of different racial groups.
• From 4 years onwards, children from the ethnically dominant group
can accurately identify their own ethnic group membership and that
when required to make choices or indicate preferences, they reveal
increasingly strong bias towards their ethnic in-group.
• From 3-4 years of age children display an increase in in-group
positivity/out-group negativity in their trait attributions.
• Bias peaks at around 6 to 7 and then gradually declines.
Three major theories of prejudice formation:
• Social Learning Theory
• Social-cognitive Developmental Theory
• Social Identity Development Theory
Social Learning Theory
• Reflects the differential values attached to
different groups within a society or community.
• People are a product of their social surroundings
and adopt the attitudes and stereotypes
attached to groups that correspond to the
relative status or power held by those groups
• Children’s attitudes are assumed to a reflect
those of their parents.
Social cognitivedevelopmental theory
• Qualitatively different types of prejudice at different ages as a result
of cognitive changes.
• Most children display ethnic prejudice by 6 to 7 years.
• No strong evidence that children’s prejudice is influenced by parents
or peers. Rather it is argued that children’s prejudice is greatly
influenced by their perceptual-cognitive processes.
• The effect of increasing cognitive abilities is that they allow the child
to attend to the differences between people instead of responding to
them as category members. Individuals apply different forms of
reasoning to different situations.
Conflicting research
• Role of parents
• Age and stages of prejudice
• Research paradigms used.
Social Identity Development
Theory
• Proposes that ethnic prejudice is the end-point of a process that
involves four sequential phases: undifferentiated, ethnic awareness,
ethnic preference, and ethnic prejudice.
• Prior to 2 to 3 years old, children are undifferentiated (traditional
racial cues lack meaning and are not salient to them).
• Ethnic awareness emerges at around 3 years old.
• Further refinement, elaboration and clarification of the child’s
concept of a racial/ethnic group can continue at least to 10 or 11
years of age and comprises a number of age-related phases.
• For dominant group children, the implication is that by 4 or 5 years
of age they enter an ethnic preference phase, characterised by a
preference for their in-group.
Ethnic Prejudice
• From 6 to 7 years onwards ethnic
prejudice may emerge and crystallise in
those children who come to hold such
attitudes.
What factors could contribute to the
emergence of an ethnic prejudice?
Ethnic Prejudice
Transition from in-group preference to out-group prejudice depends
upon the extent to which:
1. Children identify with their social group
2. Prejudice is shared and expressed by members of the child’s
social group
3. There is competition or conflict between the in-group and an ethnic
out-group which is particularly exacerbated when in-group
members feel that their status or well-being is threatened in some
way.
SIDT
• Does not predict specific age-related changes in ethnic prejudice
which are tied to changes in cognitive development.
• Assumes that prejudice would normally be unlikely to occur in
children younger than 6 or 7 years because their social motives and
social knowledge would not be sufficiently developed to support
their own feelings of out-group dislike or hatred.
• Assumes that when prejudice does appear in children it typically
emerges after 5 to 6 years of age and is dependent upon the
parameters of the social situation, and the children’s level of social
group identification.
• Children (and adults) may never display ethnic prejudice if the group
which they identify does not foster prejudicial attitudes towards
ethnic minority groups.
The Birmingham Context
What might be having an impact on the
development of ethnic prejudice in the
young people of Birmingham?
What risk factors do you need to take into
consideration as DSLs/Head teachers?
Risk factors that may increase likelihood
of ethnic prejudice
Identification with in-group
•
Lack of opportunities to engage with
members of out-groups e.g. mono-cultural
schools, mono-cultural communities.
•
All social activities occur with in-group
•
Not educated about out-groups
•
Schools’ ethos, culture and approach to
learning only reflects that of the in-group
Prejudice shared/expressed by in-group
•
Social/family/peers hold prejudiced views
•
Access to prejudiced viewpoints via social
media from perceived in-group
•
Institutional racism
•
Media reporting of events
•
Schools’ ethos, culture and approach to
learning only reflects that of the in-group
Competition/conflict
•
Competition within the community for
resources e.g. housing, jobs
•
Ethnically motivated attacks
•
Reports from war zones
•
Reports/rumours that certain traditions are
no longer allowed
•
Campaigns against clothing worn by certain
groups
•
Values being undermined
Available support from the Educational
Psychology Service
•
•
•
•
Collaborative consultations with your setting link EP.
Bespoke training for your setting.
Supervision for Head teachers and DSLs
An Organisational Psychology approach to support
schools directly affected by Trojan Horse
• A BEPS course from September 2016 on Prejudice
formation and Radicalisation: A psychological
perspective