Educating Children to Decategorize Racial Groups

• Published in: Journal of applied social psychology Vol. 33; no. 3; pp. 554 - 564
• Main Authors: Jones, Lauriann M., Foley, Linda A.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Oxford, UK Blackwell Publishing Ltd 01.03.2003; Wiley Subscription Services, Inc
• Subjects: Children; Curriculum; Education; Pedagogy; Racial prejudice; Stereotypes; U.S.A
• ISSN: 0021-9029; 1559-1816
• DOI: 10.1111/j.1559-1816.2003.tb01912.x

Children categorize themselves and others along racial lines, leading them to perceive members of other racial groups as different from themselves. Teaching children to decategorize their perceptions of people could help them to see more self‐other similarities than differences. Fourth‐grade children (N = 65) were randomly assigned to be taught a short lesson on decategorizing people or to be read a story. As hypothesized, children in the experimental group scored significantly lower on the Racial Decategorization scale (Jones, 2001) than did children in the control group. The study demonstrates the benefits of teaching decategorization. Elementary school curricula including these lessons could reduce biased categorization and possibly promote the development of more nonpreju‐diced children.