Holloway, HannahDevelopmental 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.en-USOther