Children’s Reasoning about Race- and Wealth-Based Exclusion

Abstract

Developmental and social psychological research has explored strategies to mitigate intergroup biases. Intergroup contact, or positive contact with individuals perceived to be part of an outgroup, has emerged as a prominent approach. A robust literature has examined children’s evaluations of intergroup social exclusion (i.e., when someone is excluded based solely on their group identity). Findings reveal that race-based exclusion is viewed as more wrong than wealth-based exclusion. Yet, little research has investigated children’s reasoning about intergroup exclusion as it spontaneously occurs during classroom discussions. The current study addressed this gap by audio recording teacher-facilitated classroom discussions once a week for eight weeks as part of a school-based program to reduce prejudice and bias. Discussions followed the use of an online tool which depicted hypothetical intergroup peer encounters. Participants were 8- to 11-year-old elementary school students attending U.S. public schools in the Mid-Atlantic region, N = 522, N = 30 classrooms, ethnically and racially diverse with no majority group. The current study used a smaller subset of the original sample, N = 12 classrooms. A theoretically-derived coding system was applied to the discussions; categories included moral (fairness), group identity (ingroup preferences) and psychological (personal choice). Preliminary analyses suggest that children used moral reasoning more often when engaging in classroom discussions about race-based exclusion compared to wealth-based exclusion. These results have implications for school-based interventions aimed at reducing prejudice and promoting fairness in childhood.