Ethnic Prejudice in Young Children in Indonesia: Intervention Attempts Using Multicultural Friendship Stories

Publication Year
2018

Type

Journal Article
Abstract

Ethnic prejudice, even among very young children, is a universal occurrence. Yet, little research has been conducted on this issue outside of Westernized contexts. The current study evaluated a storybook intervention in Indonesia, a country of historically high racial tensions, designed to reduce young children’s ethnic bias regarding out-groups of high-status (i.e., Chinese) and low-status (i.e., Papuan). In Study 1, 138 children, aged from 4 to 7 years, participated and included 87 children in an intervention group. The children were read two stories about cross-ethnic friendships over 2 days. Children’s attitudes were evaluated before and after the storybook reading using the Multi-response Racial Attitude measure and a social distance measure. Analyses indicated minimal to no effectiveness of the intervention. These findings were replicated in Study 2 with 20 children who received an enhanced intervention procedure by being read five different stories about cross-ethnic friendships, each book read two times over the course of 5 weeks, followed by discussions about the messages in the stories. Again, there was no reduction in racial bias. The combined lack of prejudice reduction across Study 1 and Study 2 emphasized how strong racial bias for lowest status, ethnic out-groups develops from an early age and that these prejudices are difficult to change, warranting greater attention in early childhood educational research.

Journal
International Journal of Early Childhood
Volume
50
Pages
67–84
Type of Article
Journal Article
Full text

Open access via the link provided.

Type of Prejudice/Bias
Country
Method