NATIONAL RESEARCH UNIVERSITY HIGHER SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS

FACULTY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES

Intervention Project
CUTBACKS OF PREJUDICE AND RISES EMBRACEMENT Of RESPECT FOR ETHNIC DIFFERENCES IN EARLY
CHILDHOOD

Arain Abdullah Ahmed

MOSCOW, 2020
 CUTBACKS OF PREJUDICE AND RISES EMBRACEMENT Of RESPECT FOR ETHNIC DIFFERENCES IN EARLY
CHILDHOOD

Abstract

Prejudice incensement in childhood and youth are one of the most debated social problems

in the world. Investigations show that incensement of bias/prejudice during the childhood area is

increasing rapidly. More importantly, the rise in the stereotype is faster than the growth rate of

child age. Political institutions including, family, educational, religion, socio-cultural,

traditional and inherent factors play an important role in the inclusion of children and youth in

perceiving prejudice. Youth largely attract to prejudice factor because they suffer from lack of

opportunity/knowledge/dimensional thinking that their communities, schools, families are

remiss in providing them. Therefore, there are no guilty children; considering this aspect,

children should be tried to be reintegrated into society equally, not punished by their

race/religion/family background/ethnicity. If children in their early ages are not included in

vocational trainings, programs, then will be disconnected, and it will also lead them to several

hardships in their future goals or endeavors. Children in their early ages are most likely to adapt

what they see, hear or feel instantly and make their imaginations about world and other people.

Persona that differ one person from another and child creates his own level of thinking. By this

intervention paper that going to help in finding ways to anyhow production of that mechanism

through which prejudice incensement could be stop in future.

Keywords: prejudice, political institutions, personality, ethnicity, peer influence, child

development, aggressiveness, persona, incensement, intervention.

EARLY CHILDHOOD.

Introduction

Prejudice can be define as preconceived ideas about people “perceived as being different,

due to race, religion, culture, gender, disabilities, appearance, language, sexual orientation, or

social status” (Dr. Debra A. Byrnes, 1995). She specified previous researches (Brown, 1972;

Byrnes & Kiger, 1992; Milner, 1975; Williams & Orland, 1976) that children are not bound for

the formation/creation of prejudicial stereotypes or discriminating against others. She states that

“children begin developing attitudes about various groups in society as early as ages three or four

and Four or five by Brown.1995. Initially such attitudes are quite flexible. Prejudice began to start

its journey in an early stages of child growth, scholars increased their focus of work to ponder its

rises and possible cutback. Empirical research has mapped out the relevancy of intergroup with

age that bring round changes (Raabe & Beelmann, 2011). The behavioral component, called

discrimination, entails treating others differently because of their ethnicity, such as name-calling

and social exclusion. There may be different age trajectories for prejudice and discrimination, but

both are considered detrimental to social harmony and productivity, and so worthy of attention.

(Devine, 1989) argued that prejudice can be manifested in two distinct forms: automatic and

controlled. Controlled prejudice is produced by conscious, intentional, deliberative mental

processes. In contrast, automatic prejudice is produced by the spontaneous activation of mental

associations that are not necessarily personally endorsed. The critical finding that prejudice seems

to emerge very early in life has encouraged researchers since the 1920s to focus on developmental
aspects when trying to explain and prevent prejudice. Prejudice reflects a generalization whereby

the negative evaluation addresses all (or at least most) members of the out-group disregarding

individual differences.

The problem is that prejudice and discrimination intend to limit children's development

and growth. They lead to some children being left out and denied the opportunity to develop

friendships and to learn new things. Prejudice also narrows children's horizons and makes them

frightened of anything that is 'different’. Prejudice decreases child’s decision making power and

push it towards onerous fear. For as long as there has been a problem of rising prejudice in children

there have been ways or mechanism to reduce it, it’s pretty self-explanatory. Yet, for as long as

there have been these, there are also questions as to why prejudice occurs or why do individuals

perceive it. Previous results testified based on the finding that bias is ceaseless because prejudiced

children avoid disconfirming experiences and information. For example, children with advert

friends in the early grades are more likely than those without such friends to have an integrated

social network as adolescents and adults (Ellison and Powers, 1994). What should be done to

create a platform for solving those issues related to children attitudes, behaviors, facial

expressions, self transcentry emotions to others.

To do so we have to build up a scenario to identify those keys to accomplish a center in

which we should have a talk on daily basis with parents and people for the realization that if they

will have positive behavior and intend to let their children in for perceiving following things could

be a result in changing their cognitive aggressive behavior to acceptancy of different ethnic groups

and so on. In today’s world of modernity, kids are immersed in negative stereotypes influenced

by the media and culture, just as adults are. To counteract that, parents can expose kids through

stories, books, and films to more positive, counter-stereotypical images of people from different
racial and ethnic groups—including moral exemplars like Martin Luther King Jr. or Dolores

Huerta. In studies with adults, this type of intervention has been shown over and over to be one of

the most effective ways of decreasing bias.

Hearing these stories, the kids will makes presumptions and persona between the group

they’re hearing about and positivity, and that counteracts. On the other hand, those who had cross-

group friendships were less likely to develop biases against immigrants in their community, even

if their parents or peers were biased. These studies suggest that cross-group friendships might help

mitigate biases that could otherwise form. stereotypical associations that they may already have,”

Parents can help achieving cross-group friendships by being role-model for their kids. This

may seem superfluous, but research has shown that children’s racial attitudes are less tied to

parents’ explicit messages around race than to the racial makeup of the parents’ social network.

It’s so much more normal to reduce bias by developing intergroup friendships, because it

changes your attitudes through a very human mechanism, which is the interpersonal. Though

adding people to your social group based simply on race is probably unwise, it’s possible to search

for common interests with people of different backgrounds, making it more likely that a friendship

will happen naturally. Once friendship grows, empathy develops organically, says Mendoza-

Denton. Many black parents give explicit instructions to their kids about the importance of race in

society and what they can do to mitigate any bias they encounter. But well-meaning white parents

are less likely to bring up race with their children, perhaps fearing that doing so would mean they

don’t value egalitarianism or believe in a “post-race” society. The problem with that approach is

that not talking about race can create a vacuum of information, which leads children to absorb

biases around them—often in ways that are counter to parents’ own held values.

Theoretical background and literature review

prejudice during their newborn, infantine, toddler and preschooling age. The transparent contrast

between the two (psychologist, sociologist) can be seen in their basic assignment of cause: while

psychologists attribute prejudice to normal adaptive development, sociologists look first to the

social environment. Psychological theorists point out the internal mechanisms that lead to

prejudicial thinking, the development of in-group and out-group theories, the social cognitive

perspective, and the idea of social identity formation (Allport 1979, Tajfel and Turner 1979,

Aboud 2005). Alternatively, sociologists focus on the impact and strains that social forces

impose upon group relations, fostering theories on group frustration and anxiety (Parsons 1954),

domination and subordination (Blumer 1958), and ethnic and racial social distance (Bogardus

1925). Social psychologists in start pays attention to contrast between between sociology’s

structural approach and psychology’s individualist perspective but, by the middle of the

twentieth century, social psychological research mirrored psychology and its emerging subfields

much more closely (Oishi et al. 2009). The goal is to identify previous theoretical (psychological

and sociological) works on the attainment of ethnic and racial prejudice in children, and to

consider ways in which the two perspectives can be brought together to advance knowledge in

both fields. Theory were based on examination of the psychological framework on the

development of ethnic and racial prejudice in children, an analysis of the sociological perspective

on ethnic and racial prejudice acquisition in children; and a discussion of the ways in which

these approaches can be considered together to create a better understanding of ethnic and racial

prejudice acquisition in children.

Most psychological theories of prejudice have their roots to Gordon Allport’s book, The

Nature of Prejudice (first published in 1954), in which his core work was based on cognitive
theories of prejudice and also for accomplishing the institution for a developmental view of

prejudice. Although the term ethnic prejudice may remain constant in favoring one’s own group ,

Allport observed that most ethnic prejudice takes the form of an unwarranted, or faulty, negative

view and, like most psychological theorists, he used the term ethnic prejudice to refer to a feeling

of antipathy toward either an entire ethnic or racial group, or a member of an ethnic or racial

group. Unlike a prejudgment that may be corrected, Allport saw a prejudiced sentiment as

“actively resistant to all evidence that would unseat it”. As children are known to acquire

steadfast views that do not stand up in an adult’s reasoning, it is not surprising to find that they

can exhibit ethnic prejudice. Allport believed that children can learn to adopt prejudice through

normal social psychological processes such as conformity, socialization, and contact with others,

any of which may lead to an increase or decrease in negative sentiments toward others.

Conforming behaviors such as mimicking and role playing are important stages in the

developmental process of young children that may take on prejudicial forms of expression.

Similarly, child socialization may be characterized by the prejudices that exist among adult

members of a family. And, by coming in contact with other children and adults, young people

may adopt the prejudiced opinions of those around them.

A relevant factor to explain why prejudice starts declining in late childhood is related to

cognitive development (Doyle, Beaudet, & Aboud, 1988). According to cognitive developmental

theory (CDT; Aboud, 1988), reduction in bias can depend on changes in cognitive abilities that

relate to a shift in the focus of attention from the self to the group, and to dominant information

processes, which start to rely more on affective and cognitive cues rather than on perceptual

information, see also (Hughes, 2016). Therefore, prejudice in early and middle childhood is due,

at least in part, to cognitive limitations, which gradually diminish, while abstract reasoning and
inclusive categorization abilities increase (Aboud & Spears Brown, 2013; Doyle & Aboud, 1995).

This prediction is in line with research on prejudice in late childhood. First, from late childhood

children's egocentrism starts to reduce, along with the perception that one's in-group is superior to

other groups (Aboud, 1988). As SDO is generally higher for high-status group (Pratto, 2006),

majority's positive contact with the minority may counteract this perception and foster the

acquisition of more egalitarian values, and in turn more positive attitudes towards other

stigmatized, low-status groups (Pettigrew, 1998). This is consistent with research on the

developmental trajectories of prejudice, related to greater acquisition and flexibility of cognitive

skills (Aboud, 2003), development of morality and greater attention to social norms (Rutland &

Killen, 2015). However, although contact should positively affect prejudice towards the primary

outgroup also in younger samples (Aboud 2012; Tropp & Prenovost, 2008), egocentrism and

weaker abilities to consider simultaneously different groups and draw similarities between them

may impair secondary transfer effects (Aboud, 1988). Future research should compare different

age groups and test when the emergence of secondary transfer effects is more likely to occur.

Social Domain Theory and Children’s Prejudice:

It has demonstrate the forms of social reasoning that children use when evaluating situations

that reflect social exclusion: the moral, social conventional, and the psychological (Smetana, 2006;

Turiel, 1983). For example, exclusion may be viewed as wrong and unfair (moral), or as legitimate

to make the group work well (conventional), or as legitimate due to personal privileges problems

and choice (psychological). Research using the social domain approach has shown that exclusion

(i.e., blatant prejudice) based solely on gender and race, which involves the use of negative

stereotypes, is viewed as wrong and unfair by the vast majority of children and adolescents

interviewed and surveyed. At the other end of the spectrum, there are forms of exclusion that are
tolerated by children—for example, exclusion based on qualifications (e.g., excluding a slow

runner from a track team) or exclusion based on agreed group criteria (e.g., excluding somebody

from a music club who cannot play music). What we are interested in are the types of exclusion

that are multifaceted and at times ambiguous, involving both group identity and issues of fairness,

due to the potential use of factors that result in prejudicial and biased outcomes. These forms of

exclusion often involve subtle forms of in-group favoritism, prejudice, and stereotyping.

Thorough this intervention paper it is been hence approachable to conduct researches using

different methodologies to accomplish or present the solutions for problems related to prejudice

involvement in early ages of children that made them to think about other ethnicity in a deviant

way.

Methods

The goal of a developmental meta-analysis is to identify trends in age differences across disparate

data sets and to analyze these trends in terms of moderating influences (Laursen, Finkelstein, &

Townsend Betts, 2001). There are two possible strategies for making results comparable across

studies: One is to compare the level of prejudice between studies, for example, to compare studies

of 5-year olds with studies of 7-year-olds. The level of prejudice would then be the dependent

variable, and age would be investigated as a moderator explaining differences in prejudice between

studies. However, using this strategy confounds age differences with other between-study

differences such as sample characteristics (e.g., if samples of predominantly American 5-year-olds

were to be compared with British 7-year-olds) or assessment procedures (e.g., if prejudice were to

be measured more often by tests among 5-year-olds and by questionnaires among 7-year-olds).

Moreover, because prejudice is usually measured with different instruments across studies,

standardized effect size calculation of prejudice requires information on in- and out-group
evaluations to make the extent of prejudice between samples comparable (i.e., studies measuring

only out-group evaluations have to be excluded). For these reasons, we preferred adopting a second

strategy, which operationalizes the age difference in prejudice as the dependent variable and

integrates cross-sectional and longitudinal studies investigating prejudice in different age groups.

This allows us to calculate unconfounded age differences and to include studies measuring

evaluations solely toward one group on a negative dimension. In addition, this strategy makes an

explanation of the variability of age differences in prejudice across studies by testing moderators

of these age differences (e.g., sample characteristics) possible. This enables us to investigate the

variability of developmental changes in children across samples in a way comparable to an analysis

of inter-individual differences in inter-individual change within samples.

Inclusion Criteria

To capitalize on these advantages, we conducted a so-called direct developmental meta-analysis

(Laursen et al., 2001) and selected studies along the following eligibility criteria.

First, studies had to compare prejudice in at least two age groups with at least a 1-year difference

in age (cross-sectional), or one group of children had to be measured twice over a period of at least

1 year (longitudinal).

Second, prejudice had to be assessed as a negative reaction toward ethnic, racial, or national out-

groups. This negativity could be operationalized either through an evaluation of an out-group on a

negative dimension (independent from any evaluation of other groups) or through an evaluation

of the out-group compared to the in-group on a positive or negative dimension. However, if a study

evaluated the out-group on a positive dimension alone (e.g., liking) we did not view this as a

measurement of prejudice and excluded the study. Negative evaluations could be assessed
explicitly or implicitly using either cognitive (e.g., negative trait attribution), affective (e.g.,

expression of dislike), or behavioral (e.g., social distance) measures.

Third, prejudice measures had to reflect a direct evaluation of a natural ethnic, racial, or national

out-group. Studies that measured prejudice toward non-ethnic or artificial out-groups (e.g., studies

based on the minimal group paradigm) were excluded. Moreover, because the negative reaction

should be due to group membership alone and not to individual characteristics, we excluded studies

using sociometric measures of negativity toward familiar individuals (e.g., like classmates). We

also excluded measures evaluating out-groups indirectly (e.g., by evaluating the behavior of an in-

group member who excludes an out-group member).

Fourth, participants in primary studies had to be aged 19 years or below. We chose this upper

limit, because major life transitions occur after this age in most countries (e.g., university entrance,

military service) that define the beginning of early adult- hood (Valsiner & Connolly, 2003).

Fifth, we included only nonclinical samples (e.g., no delinquent samples) containing at least 10

participants per age group.

Sixth, we excluded samples from experimental and intervention studies that manipulated or trained

prejudice-related variables, but integrated data from control groups with no manipulation.

Finally, manuscripts had to be written in Eng- lish, German, or another European language (e.g,

Dutch, French, Portuguese, or Spanish).

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