The Role of Educational Television in Changing the Intergroup Attitudes of Children

Publication Year
1976

Type

Journal Article
Abstract

After being exposed to Canadian-produced "Sesame Street" inserts containing non-White children, 205 3-5 yr old White children showed a strong preference for playing with non-Whites as opposed to Whites. This sharply contrasted with the preferences of a control group not exposed to these inserts. The respondents, all English Canadians, also viewed inserts with a French Canadian male and indicated an equally strong preference for him, whether or not his cultural identity was evident. Possible explanations of these effects are considered. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)

Journal
Child Development
Volume
47
Pages
277-280
Type of Article
Journal Article
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

Two independent variables were structured for the multiracial theme: exposure to children of other races in an integrated or nonintegrated setting and two versus four exposures. [...] Consequently, some of the children were exposed to two different integrated inserts where whites and nonwhites played together in a familiar setting (i.e., in a park, on a train). In other conditions, the children saw two different nonintegrated inserts where only nonwhites were presented in a more ethnic setting [...]. To test for the effect of increasing exposure, other groups of children were given two exposures to each of the two integrated inserts or the two nonintegrated inserts. In addition to being exposed to inserts on the multiracial theme, some of the children saw an insert where the central character, Richard, spoke only French. Other children saw an insert where Richard could not be identified as French since he did no speaking at all. In both sets of inserts, Richard interacted to some extent with other children as he walked through the streets of Quebec City. [...] For other children, these Richard inserts were combined with inserts related to other aspects of the "Sesame Street" program not reported here. [...] To test for the effects of repetition, additional groups of children saw each of the Richard inserts repeated three times. [...]

Subjects A total of 205 white English Canadian (male and female) children from two nursery schools were used as subjects. The children came from relatively homogeneous upper-middle-class backgrounds and ranged in age from 3 1/2 to 5 1/2 years.

Procedure [...] Immediately after viewing the inserts, each child was approached by one of 10 trained interviewers and shown two sets of four photos taken from the inserts. One set contained white children, the other Oriental and Indian children. The child was then asked which group of kids he would like us to bring to the nursery school the next day. The child was then shown a photograph of both the French Canadian boy Richard and a second child and asked which of these two boys he would like us to bring to the nursery school the next day. [...]

Type of Prejudice/Bias
Country
Method