Aboud: Race and Ethnicity

"Modifying Children's Racial Attitudes" - Frances E. Aboud

Aboud has a PhD in Psychology and spent much time focusing specifically on the development of racism in children, which is what this article focuses on. I believe that Aboud is speaking to anyone who educates children, especially at an early age, and also to parents or guardians of young children. In this article Aboud's assumptions include the fact that children are capable of being prejudiced against people from different ethnic and racial backgrounds, contrary to some beliefs that children are not prejudiced, but just curious about people who are different from them. Aboud supports this assumption with research of children of different ages to determine their level of prejudice against people from different ethnic backgrounds. Aboud points out that children between the ages of 4 and 7 show the greatest amount of bias for their own group. She writes that preventative measures are difficult to implement because by the age of 5, most children are already biased. Aboud uses a study by Bigler and Liben to support this point. Bigler and Liben performed a study with children in 1993 and found that the children were unable to recall information about people who did not fit their stereotype, and sometimes even distorted information to fit the stereotype. I have always assumed if a child had some type of prejudice, it was a result of something they saw or heard from their parents, but I was surprised to read that children of parents who showed no sign of prejudice had young children with strong biases for their own racial/cultural group. Although the book does talk about ethnic and cultural diversity in the classroom, and how to encourage appreciation of diversity, it did not directly talk about how to change the opinions of very young students who already have some racist or prejudice beliefs. I am glad that I had the opportunity to read this article because it discusses the most effective ways to change the prejudice opinions children have about other ethnicities into positive opinions. It seems that the most effective solution is to encourage friendships between students of different ethnicities. Aboud points out that friendship provides the necessary context for emotional, cognitive, and behavioral changes to occur.