Children and Prejudice Essay

Abstract Over the last century, queryers lose been debating whether outr seasons ar inborn in baberen, questi whizzrs accordingly found that tiddlerren atomic number 18 in fact preferential, precisely make do arises about how they blend in outr be ond. about studies betokened that shaverren atomic number 18 born with existence mischiefd and that it is innate and natural, where as unalike studies argue that impairment stateion be learnt accessiblely come to p arnts, family, peers and the kindly surroundings in which they grew up in.Theories concur been devised to tending pardon the prejudice processes of children by in-group and out-group manner at that place is the developmental Intergroup surmise and the genial Identity increaseal surmisal. A raw(a) debate has been surfacing about the slump of prejudice at the get on with of vii and no accrue of prejudice. One Australian study marchs consistency with children of Amerifanny and Canada, only few studies show no racial prejudice towards separatewise races in children. Children and preconceived idea. principal of whether children be invidious has long been debated. inventer(prenominal) and novel inquiryes charter found that on that point are in fact prejudice tendencies in children and that it send packing be present(a) at the age of tierce to four some years, nevertheless it is unclear how children become prejudiced. explanation of prejudice according to Allport (1954) is that prejudice is idea ill of others without sufficient warrant (As cited in Eagly, xxxx, p. 45) and according to Kosslyn and Rosenberg (2004) prejudice is an attitude (generally prejudicious) toward members of a group (p.G-7).In the course of explore on the prejudice of children, at that place has been debate over the relative role of intelligence versus environmental- encyclopaedism factors (Gutman & Hickson, 1996, p. 448). Several theories give tried to explain the prej udice in children, for example, the Developmental Intergroup theory (Bigler & Liben, 1996) and the affable Identity Development hypothesis (Nesdale, Durkin, Maass & Griffiths, 2005). Several legal communitys assimilate been employ to measure racial attitudes of children towards other races such as the Preschool racial berths Measure and the Multiresponse racial Attitude measure (Aboud, 2003).Less therefore half a century ago, some social theorists believed that prejudice are inborn in people and that it is inherent and instinctive, it was considered natural to non like people who differ physically and like people who are the comparable to wiz self but search in the last three decades they have discarded those theories. Researchers are instanter convince that children are prejudiced by learning it socially, children comply, and are processd by the existence of patterns in the culture in which they live (Clark, 1955, p.17).This beness that, children believed non t o be born with tendencies to be prejudiced but learn it socially by how they live. Consistent with Clark, Bigler and Liben (2007), believes that archaeozoic days children are often seen as world immune by the blackball slashes of adults, but many a nonher(prenominal) studies show that prejudice exist by the age of four years old. Allport (1958) states that children egress to card physical characteristics that mark a racial group membership.Like researches above, findings of Kowalskis (2003) research, they have found that children as small as preschoolers boodle to have negative attitudes to other racial/out groups, they have a tendency to say ordained statements about same race and negative statements about other races (Aboud, 1987 Aboud & Sherry, 1984, as cited in Kowalski, 2003). Until quite recently, there were differences of opinion concerning the age at which children start to develop and express racial prejudices. fit in to a recent research of white kindergarten children and Afri plunder-American children, they show a preference for skin color. These children were asked a few questions and they showed a great sensory faculty of skin color, this finding supports the idea that racial awareness is present as preadolescent as the age of three (Clark,1970). to a greater extent or less children as raw as three years if age begins to express begin to express racial and ghostly attitudes comparable to those held by adults in their society.The racial and spiritual attitudes of sixth-graders are barely different from the attitudes of high-school students. there is general agreement that children can be prejudiced, but what factors there is, is unclear. It is debated between environmental-learning and in make-up knowledge. Research on cognition victimization tries explaining prejudice at different ages of cognitive ontogenesis and the Environmental-learning explains that children and discrimination is not grow in the child but it is learn t finished with(predicate) a social context.According to Allport (1988), children are prejudiced because children filter and distort environmental input, this means children are prejudiced due to the lack of cognitive capableness at a certain age and that children have immature thoughts (As cited in Gutman & Hickson, 1996, p. 448). From the well-disposed/ Environmental reading theory perspective, racial ideas of children are not concrete, more than soft changed, than racial ideas of adults. It is probable too, that racial attitudes and behavior are learnt off adults.The racial and religious attitudes of a young child may become more positive or more negative as he/she matures, according to the social environment of the child. The worry these attitudes volition take form of expression, will be determined by the causa of experiences that the child has grown up in (Clark, 1970). In line with Clark (1970), some researchers suggest that children self identify with parents and learn off them (Sinclair, Dun & Lowery, 2004).Social Learning opening argues that children develop beliefs and behaviors by mimicking off an distinguished example in their life, usually family and peers (Bandura, 1997, as cited in Sinclair, Dunn & Lowery, 2004). Likewise, attachment theory suggests that children internalise their parents expectations. Sinclair et al (2004) research provided evidence that parents racial attitudes does in fact influence both their childrens connotative and unadorned racial prejudice, overly their results suggest that children that identify with parents overhear the racial attitudes of their parents more on an unvoiced than explicit level.In fact parents understood racial attitudes may have a bigger influence on children than their explicit racial attitudes because parents are unaware of silent biases, it is unconscious and therefore, unable to consciously nail themselves from showing prejudice attitudes. This research besides suggests tha t, parents racial attitudes may be specially influential early in childhood, but peers and other form of social environmental attitudes can influence children more as they get sure-enough(a). Some researchers suggest that the influence of environmental-learning factors, in addition to cognitive factors, be given more serious research consideration.This would mean, for example, taking into account the fact that on the basis of their differing exposure to group information, children form different schemata (cognitive structures containing information about groups e. g. , Bem, 1981). According to Bergen ( ) family affects the development of prejudice in children through modeling, which children observes and imitates important role models, Children approximately cardinal to nine years of age can show prejudice behavior without a model, and where as younger children do not understand rules, there fore they estimate at adult models (Bergen,), also when children gather in their pare nts prejudices they perceptionally emerge with their parents likes and dislikes.Bergen ( ) concluded that a prejudiced child goes through some(prenominal) stages, such as, fear of strangers, racial awareness, realisation with in-group, identification with parents emotion and total rejections of out-group, and seen afterward on this is homogeneous to the Social Identity Developmental conjecture phases.Researchers believe that the Social Learning Theory is weakening researchers are now turning to the basic cognitive processes of a childs prejudice behavior (Aboud & Sherry, 1984 Bigler &Liben, 1993). Also, Bigler and Liben (2007) suggest that Social Learning theory does not explain prejudice in children, Social Learning Theory is stating that military man behavior is not innate but learnt through important/ appropriate models (Vaughan & Hogg, 2008) . A group norm study used the Social identity-developmental theory, which has four phases.The first one is undifferentiated (two to three years of age) followed by ethnic awareness (ethnic awareness begins at three years old off labeling from parents), and then ethnic preference (the child learns that he or she is apart of a social group) and then ethnic prejudice (children around the age of septet has crystalize attitudes towards certain races, but other research suggest that at this age prejudice decreases) (Nesdale et al, 2005 Nesdale, 2004).In this research, the findings were consistent with the Social Identity-Developmental Theory Childrens prejudice phases, they found that sevener year old biases of out-groups are different to those of a younger age and is more stable Nesdale et al (2005) suggests that children at this age should be a the concrete operable stage, which allows them to have more stable thought process and crystalised. Prejudices towards certain type of people are not known why, children only notice certain cues, for example, gender rather then a handicapped somebody.Research indicates that young children tend to focus on perceptually outstanding characteristics in a person (perceptional cues being race, gender, age & attractiveness, etc). Children observe the characteristics of physical appearance. They notice perceptual similarities and differences among those who live, work & interact together. They then gather the social groups they observe which must have been caused by meaty differences between groups (Bigler & Liben, 2007).The new theoretical model by Bigler and Liben (2007), called the Developmental Intergroup Theory (DIT), tries to cause this classification skills in children that affects stereotyping. This theory is combine by two theories, first being the inter-group theory, which is social identification within a group (Tajfel & Turner, 1986) and second one being the Self-categorization Theory (Turner, Hogg, Oakes, Reicher & Wetherall, 1987).Their DIT theory proposes that boldness grouping increases in children when adults label groups or group me mbers (Bigler & Liben, 2007 Racial prejudice is a predisposition to react favorably to members of a racial group, because of their group affiliation (Aboud, 1988, p. 48). The mass of child racial prejudice studies have all been researched on children in matrimony America.As stated above one research suggests that childrens prejudice is crystallized at the age of seven and does not decline but other research tends to suggest it does, according to Gutman and Hickson (1996) both can happen because at that age children have more developed mature top dog and that because of that it can seem like it decreases because the child has a crystallized conception of a group in their mind.According to Katz (1975) the decrease happen due to social desirabilitys and that prejudice is not authentic and according to Aboud (1993) the decline happens because of maturing cognitive development of the child (Augoustinos & Rosewarne, 2001). Ausgosustinos and Rosewarne (2001) results of their research indicated that like the results of labor union American studies on children, Euro-Australian children in early years of middle school start to show less prejudice towards other groups than the younger children did.North American children prejudices are similar to the children in Australia. Consistent with Doyle and Abouds (1995) research on North American children who showed less racial prejudice towards out-groups as they get older can also be seen in Euro-Australian children, they found that older Euro-Australian start to show less racial prejudice towards Aborigines, but as seen later other Australian studies are not consistent with this finding (As cited in Augoustinos & Rosewarne, 2001).Some measures used to measure racial attitudes are the Preschool Racial Attitude Measure (PRAM) and the Multiresponse Racial Attitude (MRA), these look for racial attitudes and preferences in young children and also to find the in-group and out-group attitudes in children. In Abouds (1988) find ing that the MRA has implications, it goes beyond in finding in-group and out-group results, it doesnt recount the groups apart and that questions were to open ended and positively worded.another(prenominal) concern in this domain of a function of research is that, overseas research has in the main found that at the age of seven prejudice declines, but some of the findings in Australian studies have found not consistency of declining prejudice at that age. Another problem in Australian studies is that some children do not show bias towards other races (Augoustinos and Reynolds, 2001) this problem could be pass on looked in future studies.Overall, Abouds cardinal years (1988) that children are prejudiced and there is general agreement in other researches that children can be prejudiced and that is can start from an early age around three to five years, there is fluid a debate on whether there are cognitive developmental factors or social learning factors contemporary researcher s are starting to try and explain children and prejudice by using cognitive developmental approaches. There has been debate over prevail prejudice declines at seven or are just more implicit and repress because of social undesirability of showing prejudiced behavior.Measures used for researching child prejudice should be looked again and also further studies of child prejudices over different countries as most researches on child prejudice are studied in America and Canada perchance future studies should look at England, Australia and some other multicultural countries in Europe. References Aboud, F. E. (2003). The formation of in-group favoritism and out-group prejudice in young children Are they distinct attitudes? Developmental psychology, 39, 48-60.Augoustinos, M. , & Reynolds, K. J. (2001). The development of prejudice in children. D. Garvey (Eds.), Understanding prejudice, racism, and social involvement (pp. 57-73). London SAGE publications. Augoustinos, M. , & Rosewarne, D. L. (2001). class knowledge and prejudice in children. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 19, 143-156. Bergen, T. J. (2001). The Development of Prejudice in Children. Education, 122, 154-163. Bigler, R. S. , & Liben. L. S. (2007) Developmental Intergroup Theory. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 16, 132-166. Clark, K. B. (1970). The problem of Prejudice. Prejudice and your Child. (pp. 17-24). capital of Massachusetts Beacon Press. Eagly, A. H. (in press).Prejudice Toward a more inclusive understanding. In A. H. Eagly, R. M. Baron, & V. L. Hamilton (Eds. ), The social psychological science of group identity and social conflict Theory, application, and practice. Washington, DC APA Books. Gutman, D. B. , & Hickson, F. (1996). The affinity between racial attitudes and social-cognitive development in children An Australian study. Developmental Psychology, 12, 448-456. Kosslyn, S. M. , & Rosenberg, R. S. (2004). Psychology (pp. G-7). Sydney Pearson. Kowalski, K. ( 2003). The Emergence of Ethnic and Racial Attitudes in Preschool-Aged Children. The Journal of Social Psychology, 143, 677-690.Nesdale, A. R. (2004) Development of Prejudice in Children. In M. Augoustinos & K. Reynolds (Eds), The Psychology of Prejudice and Racism (pp. 1-12), Sage Nesdale, D. , Durkin, K. , Maass, A. , & Griffiths, J. (2005). mathematical group Norm, Threat, and Childrens Racial Prejudice. Child Development, 76, 652-663. Sinclair, S. , Dunn, E. , & Lowery, B. S. (2005). The relationship between parental racial attitudes and childrens implicit prejudice. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 41, 283-289. Vaughan, G. M. , & Hogg, M. A. (2008). Aggression. Introduction to Social Psychology (pp. 452-453). Australia Pearson.