Can music reduce anti-dark-skin prejudice? A test of a cross-cultural musical education programme Author Félix Neto, Maria Pinto, Etienne Mullet Publication Year 2016 Type Journal Article Abstract The study examined the impact of a cross-cultural musical programme on young Portuguese adolescents' anti-dark-skin prejudice. A sample of 229 sixth-grade pupils who attended public schools in the area of Lisbon, Portugal, were presented with the Implicit Association Test (IAT) - an instrument that measures the strength with which dark-skinned faces or light-skinned faces are associated with attributes that can be considered as negative or positive, and with a test measuring explicit anti-dark-skin prejudice. Half of the pupils were subsequently exposed, at school, to a 6-month musical programme that included Cape Verdean songs and Portuguese songs. The other half was exposed to the usual programme. Measures taken at the end of the programmes showed a reduction in anti-dark-skin prejudice, either implicit or explicit, among pupils in the experimental group and no reduction among pupils in the control group. Measures taken 3 months later and 2 years later showed that the impact of the experimental programme was enduring. © The Author(s) 2015. Keywords racial bias, attitude change, Cape Verde, music, Portugal Journal Psychology of Music Volume 44 Pages 388–398 Type of Article Journal Article DOI 10.1177/0305735614568882 Full text The following is an excerpt of the intervention methodology. For more information, please see the full text of the article on the publisher's website or through your institution's library. Method Participants The sample consisted of 229 sixth-grade pupils who attended two public schools in the area of Lisbon, Portugal: one in Cascais and one in Setúbal. Their mean age was 11.87 years (SD = 0.80); 57% were boys and 43% girls; 67% were from blue-collar families, 14% from employee families, 13% from white-collar families. The remaining 6% were from families whose parents were unemployed. All children were from light-skinned families and were aware that Cape Verde (a former Portuguese colony) was an African country populated by Black people. Procedure [...] Tests were administered in groups of 20–29 pupils in the schools’ computer labs. [...] Five classes, taken at random among the ten classes that were involved in the study, followed the ordinary programme (the control group); that is, no changes were introduced to their usual classes. Pupils in the other five classes were exposed to 90-minute sessions of the cross-cultural programme of musical education specifically developed for this intervention. As indicated early, it included both Portuguese (e.g., Fado) and Cape Verdean (e.g., Morna) songs (see Table 1). All these songs were in Portuguese (the official language in both countries) and Crioulo (a language in Cape Verde). They were adapted for a young audience. [...] They had no information regarding the measurements used in the study. In March 2011; that is, just after the completion of the program (Time 2), a second testing session (comprising the two instruments) took place, and tests were administered in the same conditions as at Time 1. In June 2011; that is, 3 months after completion (Time 3), a third testing session took place. Tests were administered in the same conditions as at Times 1 and 2. Finally, in May 2013, about 2 years after completion (Time 4), a fourth testing session took place, which involved only 60 participants and the IAT measurements. [...] Type of Prejudice/Bias Race/Ethnicity Country Portugal Method Field Setting Middle/High School (Grades 6-12) Google ScholarDOIBibTeX
