Masters Level Essay

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Sarah Oliver
Children’s Understanding of Discrimination
Critically evaluate the role of three situational (e.g. PGDD) factors in the development
of children’s understanding of discrimination
Discrimination has been defined as ‘negative behaviours towards someone because of
their group membership’ (p402 Brown, 2006). Two commonly held beliefs are that
children who are not aware of stereotypes and biases would not develop them unless their
parent’s had these beliefs (Katz, 2003). However, children have been found to show bias
against out-group members (e.g. Tajfel, 1970) and to report high levels of discrimination at
school (e.g. Fisher, Wallace & Fenton, 2000). Research has generally concentrated on why
individual’s become prejudiced against others. However a growing amount of research has
considered how minority groups perceive and respond to prejudice. Brown and Bigler’s
(2005) developmental model of children’s perceptions of discrimination identifies a
number of cognitive, situational and individual factors that are important in a child’s
understanding of discrimination. This essay discusses the importance of three situational
factors on children’s perceptions of discrimination: the role of target of comparison,
knowledge of the evaluator and relevance to the stereotype.
Stigmatised groups often report higher levels of discrimination to members of their
group than to themselves, a concept known as the personal/group discrimination
discrepancy (PGDD). This effect has been found across a variety of situations e.g. Crosby
(1984) carried out a survey on the workplace, which highlighted women were being
discriminated against. When asked a number of questions about their attitudes to work, it
became apparent that women recognised women as a group were being discriminated
against. However, virtually none of the women reported having been discriminated against
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Sarah Oliver
Children’s Understanding of Discrimination
personally. Brown and Bigler’s model (2006) assumed this affect would also be apparent in
children’s perception of discrimination. They justify their assumption using the findings of
two previous studies. Firstly, Brown and Bigler (2004) asked children to make judgments
about characters in a story. They found children identified a biased act of a teacher as
discrimination 72% of the time. In another study, Brown (2003) gave children negative
feedback about their performance in an art competition. Only 7% of children attributed this
to discrimination. This suggests children are more likely to identify an act as discrimination
if the victim is another individual.
Taylor et al. (1990) found support for the notion of PGDD but even though there was a
significant difference in reported discrimination depending on the target, high levels of
personal discrimination were also reported. The authors emphasised the importance of
cognitive functioning and suggested an information processing model so that an individual
uses an “additive” strategy when they add their own personal experience of discrimination
to the experiences of others. Other research has provided support for the importance of
cognitive processes such as heuristic-based explanation (Moghaddam, Stolkin &
Hutcheson, 1997). If cognitions are important in PGDD, children may only act in this way
if they have the cognitive ability. Further research in the area is required to determine the
relevance of the target of discrimination to children’s perception of discrimination.
Another situational factor that influences children’s perception of discrimination is the
knowledge that the child’s given about the evaluator. For example if they are aware that the
evaluator is a member of another group and are aware of the individual’s group status, the
target is more likely to judge the evaluation as discriminatory (e.g. Dion & Earn, 1975). If a
child is told a teacher has previous history of showing preferential treatment to boys than
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Sarah Oliver
Children’s Understanding of Discrimination
girls, a girl may be more likely to attribute a negative evaluation to discrimination. Brown
and Bigler (2004) read elementary school children stories in which a teacher gave a more
positive evaluation to a male student than a female student with an equal ability, or vice
versa. They manipulated the contextual information so that the teacher either had a history
of showing preferential treatment in the past. They found children were more likely to
imply the teacher’s response was discriminatory when the manipulation suggested
discrimination was likely, rather than ambiguous. However these results were affected by
the gender and age of the target. This suggests cognitive ability and social group
membership may influence the relevance of knowledge of the evaluator.
Lastly, the relevance of a stereotype in certain situations may influence that target’s
judgement of an event. Steele (1995) found priming the salience of a negative stereotype
about African American’s intellectual ability lowered their test performance. Pittinsky,
Shih & Ambady (1999) examined the importance of ethnic and gender stereotypes in the
completion of numerical and verbal tests. When ethnic identity was important (when
completing a maths test) participants generated more positive memories that were relevant
to their ethnicity. Whereas when gender identity was important (when completing the
verbal reasoning test) more gender relevant positive memories were described. There has
been little research that has investigated stereotype threat and children’s perception of
discrimination. Ambady et al. (2001) found activated gender stereotypes in quantitative
ability affected girls ages 5-7 and 11-13, but not in the middle age rang (7-8). Whereas
McKown & Winstein (2003) found stereotype threat influenced African American’s
judgement in later childhood, when they were more aware of the relevant stereotypes.
Finally, Muzzatti & Agnoli (2007) found stereotype threat only influenced girl’s
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Sarah Oliver
Children’s Understanding of Discrimination
performance in mathematics when they were 10 years or older. Although this evidence
does highlight the importance of stereotype threat in young children’s reaction to
stereotypes, it does highlight the importance of age. This may be because children’s
knowledge of certain stereotypes doesn’t become pronounced until children’s knowledge
of stereotypes becomes more advanced. Pittinsky et al (1999) highlighted the importance of
multiple classification skill in determining this effect.
Situational effects do seem to be important in children’s perception of discrimination.
These include whether the target of comparison is another individual or the self, the
knowledge that the target has of the evaluator and the relevance the stereotype has on the
situation that the child is in also seems to have an affect. There has been some evidence
that suggests these three factors are important in children’s understanding of perception but
more research needs to be carried out to find out how much contribution each of these has,
especially in regards to PGDD. The evidence also points to an interplay of cognitive, social
and individual factors. For example children need an advanced knowledge of stereotypes
and ability to categorise others. The ability to categorise people into multiple categories
seems to an important variable. An integrated approach is needed to explain children’s
perception of discrimination.
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Children’s Understanding of Discrimination
References
Ambady, N., Shih, M., Kim, A., & Pittinsky, T. L. (2001). Stereotype susceptibility in
children: Effects of identity activation on quantitative performance. Psychological
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Brown, C. S. ( 2003). Children's perceptions of discrimination: Antecedents and
consequences. Unpublished doctoral dissertation.
Brown, C. S. (2006). Bias at school: Perceptions of racial/ethnic discrimination among
Latino and African American children.
Brown, C. S., & Bigler, R. S. (2004). Children’s perceptions of gender discrimination.
Developmental Psychology, 40, 714–726.
Brown, C. S.,& Bigler,R. S. (2005). Children’s perception of: A developmental model.
Child Development, 76, 533–553.
Crosby, F. (1984). The denial of personal discrimination. The American Behavioural
Scientist, 27, 371-386
Dion, K. L., & Earn, B. M. ( 1975). The phenomenology of being a target of prejudice.
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Fisher, C. B., Wallace, S. A., & Fenton, R. E. (2000). Discrimination distress durin
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Killen, M., Lee-Kim, J., McGlothlin, H., & Stangor, C. (2002). How children and
adolescents evaluate gender and racial exclusion, Monographs of the Society for
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.Moghaddam, F. M., Stolkin, A. J., & Hutcheson, L. S. ( 1997). A generalized
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