Development of Ethnic, Racial, and National Prejudice in Childhood and Adolescence: A Multinational Meta-Analysis of Age Differences

Abstract

This meta-analysis summarizes 113 research reports worldwide (121 cross-sectional and 7 longitudinal studies) on age differences in ethnic, racial, or national prejudice among children and adolescents. Overall, results indicated a peak in prejudice in middle childhood (5-7 years) followed by a slight decrease until late childhood (8-10 years). In addition to differences for the various operationalizations of prejudice, detailed findings revealed different age-related changes in prejudice toward higher versus lower status out-groups and positive effects of contact opportunities with the out-group on prejudice development. Results confirm that prejudice changes systematically with age during childhood but that no developmental trend is found in adolescence, indicating the stronger influence of the social context on prejudice with increasing age.

Prejudice in the classroom: a longitudinal analysis of anti-immigrant attitudes

“…The intercept in the fixed part of the unconditional model (Model 1) is 2.2 and time is not significantly different from zero, showing that respondents did not show change due strictly to time effect of getting older. This finding is consistent with previous research showing no significant age effect for the 14-16 year old age category (Raabe and Beelmann 2011).…”

“…Generally, this study supports the literature showing a general decline in anti-immigrant attitudes over time among adolescents (Raabe and Beelmann 2011), and that there is a decline that is attributed to the contact hypothesis. Still, even taking that into account, respondents in high anti-immigrant classroom contexts still exhibit an increase in anti-immigrant attitudes.…”

“…Historically, value-added models analysing longitudinal data have addressed this issue to study academic achievement in relation to classroom context and teacher performance on students (Doran and Lockwood 2006;McCaffrey et al 2004), however, this method has not yet been applied to attitude development. As previous research has noted, there is an age effect on prejudice, but the ages that apply to this dataset (∼13-17 years) have been found to be a stabilizing time for adolescent's attitudes (Raabe and Beelmann 2011). It is suggested that this is due to the increased importance of micro contextual influences in this age group (Rutland, Killen, and Abrams 2010).…”

“…However, research has shown that these attitudes form during childhood and adolescence (Raabe and Beelmann 2011) and that once prejudicial attitudes are formed, they only become more stable and crystalized throughout the life course (Henry and Sears 2009;Sears and Funk 1999;Rekker et al 2015). Additionally, it appears that the time when individuals are susceptible to attitudinal change precipitously drops after adolescence and in young adulthood (Krosnick and Alwin 1989).…”

The Many Colors Children See: Development and Intervention of Children’s Social Prejudices

“…Many scholars view prejudice as a negative or unfavorable evaluation toward members of a particular group (see Aboud & Doyle, 1996;Bodenhausen & Richeson, 2010;Levy, Rosenthal, & Herrera-Alcazar, 2010;Raabe & Beelmann, 2011). Similarly, despite acknowledging that prejudice can be both pro and contra attitudes toward a group, Allport (1954Allport ( /1979 suggested that prejudice is mostly formed in negative way.…”