Systematic Review of interventions and programs to increase respect for ethnic diversity and social inclusion

JLI Group #4: Research & Evaluation Presenter: Ulrike Niens

Which interventions/programs work?

Research problem: Many programs have been implemented.

BUT

•  Few focus on early childhood – 0 to 8 years. •  Few have been evaluated. •  Few are conducted in non-western or southern countries. •  Few are based on theories of development or change. •  Few use conventional measures of respect & inclusion. •  Few have been published or are accessible.

In order to evaluate programs, we needed to identify components of programs & evaluation designs

Components of Programs   Content

  contact, train empathy, learn about culture, learn the language

  Theoretical underpinning   Age of children   Goal is to increase:

  knowledge re cultures   attitudes, respect   behaviour, friendship

Design of the evaluation   Correlational   Experimental analogue   Programme effectiveness

  Pre-post change or post-only   Control group   Immediate or longer Follow-up

  Measurement of outcome

Systematic review of published literature

  keywords: children; intervention; program; program evaluation; bias; anti-bias; prejudice; inclusion.

  40 articles since 1980   excluded if simply descriptive or no primary data

  organized into 7 content types of intervention   organized by design   organized by age of children

  0 to 8 years   9 to 12 years

7 content types of programmes by 'ethnicity' we include ethnic, national, religious, language, culture

1.  Contact by itself: Does contact with children of a different ethnicity increase respect & inclusion (R&I)?

2.  Contact + Allport conditions: Does cooperative learning increase R&I?

3.  Contact via language learning: Does learning another language along with teacher contact increase R&I?

4.  Vicarious contact via media: Does exposure to other- ethnicity peers via storybooks and television increase R&I?

5.  Multicultural education: Does learning about different cultures increase R&I?

6.  Anti-bias, anti-bullying practice: Does learning about ways to confront prejudice & exclusion increase R&I?

7.  Social-cognitive underpinnings, empathy, role taking: Do strategies to raise empathy, role taking, etc increase R&I?

Reduced to 3 content types of programmes

Contact by itself Contact + Allport conditions Direct Contact Contact via language learning

Vicarious contact via media Media Contact

Multicultural education Anti-bias, anti-bullying practice

Learning Empathy, role taking, social-cognitive

Reduced to 3 content types of programmes n = number of evaluations of 3 – 8 yrs

Contact by itself Contact + Allport conditions Direct Contact Contact via language learning n = 13

Vicarious contact via media Media Contact n = 9

Multicultural education Anti-bias, anti-bullying practice

Learning Empathy, role taking, social-cognitive n = 6

Some theoretical underpinnings Theory Mediator Outcome   Contact

knowledge differentiation Inclusion

  Cooperative reduced anxiety Contact intimacy, disclosure

  Friendship Positive   Vicarious contact Attitudes

  Communication elaboration likelihood   Social learning co-constructed response model, rehearsal   Training in role-taking empathy

Examples of programmes with Direct Contact

  Wright & Tropp; Aboud & Sankar –   children from two language groups together learned

their school subjects in the two languages   Finkelstein; Fishbein; Howes & Wu; Rutland

  children attended a mixed ethnicity preschool   Aboud; Graham; Turner & Hewstone

  close friendship contact in mixed ethnicity schools

Wright & Tropp (2005) Direct contact 5-9 yr olds

  Programme   Integrated language & ethnicity in classrooms   Children from two ethnic groups (English & Latino)

taught in both languages side-by-side

  Results   Children in mixed-ethnic classrooms

evaluated Latinos more positively in two-language instruction classrooms than children in uni-ethnic or uni-language classrooms

Examples of programmes with media contact

  Cole & Arafat; Fluent; Fox; Persson; Zielinska   Jalan Sesama, Shara'a Simsum television episodes

  Cameron & Rutland; Wham; Aboud   Stories of cross-ethnic friends

Jalan Sesama, Shara'a Simsum, Rechov Sumsum, Sesame Street produced locally promotes ethnic diversity

Cameron, Rutland et al used storybooks to convey cross-ethnic friendships (vicarious contact)

Cameron, Rutland et al (2006) Vicarious contact 5-11yrs

Programme •  Children (5-11 yrs) read stories about friendship of

ingroup (white British) & outgroup (refugee) •  Weekly short sessions (over 6 weeks) in small groups •  3 interventions with different emphases on: Individual

characteristics, shared ingroup identity (same school) and dual identity (same school and refugee/British)

Results •  Emphasis on Dual Ethnic Identities improved

outgroup attitudes towards refugees, more than stories emphasizing individual characteristics or shared identities only without their ethnicity.

Examples of Anti-bias and Multicultural Education programmes

  Learning to respond to discrimination & bias

  Unspecified multicultural programmes

  Learning role-taking, empathy

Aboud & Miller (2007): name-calling in a multi-ethnic primary school: 35% Black, 25% S Asian, 30% White, 10% E Asian

Which attribute was targeted for name-calling?

  appearance 27%   academically strong 22%   clothes especially girls 21%   physical weakness especially boys 19%   weight 17%   skin colour 16.5%   gender 16%   academically weak 15%   physical disability 11%   religion 10%.

Students who observed bullying in the past month

Experimental analogue design: Gr3 & 6 listened to a name-calling scenario; heard a model retort

Findings:   Children subsequently co-

constructed their own response to name-calling.

  Gr3 influenced more by adult model; Gr6 by peer.

  Gr3 more explicit retort, e.g. "Stop calling him names"; Gr6 "No he doesn't".

Bigler & Lamb have studied this with 6-7 yr olds to promote gender inclusion.

Measurement of Respect and Inclusion

  Respect measured as positive social evaluation   friendly, smart, not mean

  Respect measured as personal evaluation   like, acceptance, close social distance

  Inclusion measured by behaviour   observation of voluntary association during play   mutual friend relation, quality of friendship   anti-bias retort to a name-caller   share, help, talk with a different-ethnic peer

  Psychological mediators: Program behaviour   knowledge re culture, role-taking, perc'd similarity

Organization of evaluation designs and what they can tell us about respect and inclusion

  Descriptive – not included in our review but read as background

  Correlation – e.g. amount of contact attitudes

  Experimental analogue - usually a brief, controlled intervention implemented by a researcher

  Programme effectiveness- usually a longer experience implemented in a class by a teacher

Examples Showing the level of respect

and prejudice held by children from different ages.

Showing that higher amounts of contact are associated with more positive attitudes.

Showing that children who were shown positive interactions between a white- and brown- skinned adult changed their attitudes.

Showing that children who watched Rechov Sumsum acquired more positive attitudes towards Arabs.

Preliminary conclusions of the review

1.  Contact, esp friendship, has positive effects.

2.  Vicarious contact through the media is less consistent but also has some positive effect (it might be useful when direct contact is not available).

3.  Multicultural education with the goal of increasing knowledge about a cultural group is ineffective.

4.  Direct anti-bias teaching, esp with behaviour change and role-taking training shows promise.

Children under-8 years often have biases, so preventive strategies such as increasing knowledge are ineffective & may introduce stereotypes.

Children under-8 years have developmental barriers; they do not always receive the communicated message as intended.