Aims: How and when children develop an understanding of group boundaries have implications for conflict resolution. When social divisions are not perceptually distinct, symbols become particularly important. Framed by Social Identity Development Theory, this study was designed to assess children's categorization of symbols with conflict-related group labels.Method: In Northern Ireland, 218 children (M=8.14, SD = 1.83, range 5-11 years old) participated in a novel task designed for this study. The sample was evenly split by child gender and community background.Results: Children sorted symbols above chance with both the hypothesized national (i.e., British/Irish) and ethno-political (i.e., Protestant/Catholic) labels, showing a stronger association for the former. Sorting was also stronger for ingroup symbols, compared to outgroup symbols, and increased with age.Conclusion: These findings reflect the potential role that a divided social world has on the development of children's understanding of conflict-related groups. The results also have implications for intergroup relations among children in divided societies.
Assessing children's awareness of ethnic identity and group boundaries is important in conflictaffected societies. For example, in the Republic of North Macedonia (RNM), tense interethnic relations remain and can be seen in the largely separate living patterns, particularly in schools. This brief report analyses data from 194 children (57.7% female, 42.3% male; 45.9% Macedonian, 54.1% Albanian) in primary school. A series of one sample t-tests, with Bonferroni correction, demonstrate the viability of a new quantitative tool for measuring children's awareness of symbols relevant to interethnic relations in RNM. The findings indicate that primary school aged children are able to sort both ingroup and outgroup symbols with the hypothesized ethnic group. Moreover, ethnic awareness is present among the earliest school grades and increases with age. This approach may be used in future research and adapted in other conflict-affected settings to better understand the foundations of children's interethnic attitudes and behaviors.
Improving interethnic relations in conflict-affected societies is a difficult task, as a complex repertoire of mutual views and reactions is developed. Furthermore, the experiences of the children in such situations have rarely been taken into perspective. Therefore, this study tries to address this research gap by using data from the Republic of North Macedonia, where interethnic tensions are still present between ethnic Macedonians and ethnic Albanians, although the violent outburst of the conflict ended in 2001. The paper is focused on perceptions of contact and conflict among primary aged children, and their relations with the outgroup attitudes such as liking, trusting, and wanting to play with children from the outgroup. A total of 194 children aged 6 to 11 (M = 8.4) participated in the research, filling play-like items using Qualtrics. The sample was taken from two schools with a mixed language of instruction and was balanced for ethnicity (45.9% Macedonian, 54.1% Albanian) as well as gender (57.7% female, 42.3% male). The results of the series of regression analyses show that the contact quality and a number of outgroup friends are significantly correlated with outgroup liking, willingness to play, and outgroup trust, while the perception of conflict is negatively correlated with outgroup trust. The interaction between age and the contact quantity is a significant predictor of willingness to play with the outgroup, while the interaction between majority status and contact quantity is a significant predictor of outgroup trust. The study highlights the need for a meaningful contact between children from both ethnic groups for improvement of interethnic relations.
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