by Jane Gaber
In a message today marking the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination Kofi Annan, Secretary-General of the United Nations, spoke of proposals to be put before the UN General Assembly in order to strengthen human rights and combat racism and discrimination.
Noting that today is also the 45th anniversary of the Sharpeville massacre in South Africa, when 69 demonstrators were shot and killed during a non-violent protest against apartheid, Kofi Annan drew attention to the continuing fight against racial discrimination on all levels. "Despite decades of efforts to eradicate it, the virus of racism continues to infect human relations and human institutions in all parts of our globe," he declared.
And, it would appear that Britain has little reason to feel complacent about the elimination of prejudice, particularly regarding the attitudes of some of our children. For our children harbour more racist attitudes than was previously thought. They are just very good at concealing them when they feel circumstances demand it.
...our children harbour more racist attitudes than was previously thought.
This is the central finding of a study carried out by a team led by Dr Adam Rutland of the University of Kent and funded by the Economic and Social Research Council. In the research entitled The Development and Regulation of Prejudice in Children, Dr Rutland found that children who hold ethnic prejudices become adept at hiding them when they sense that their views are not going to be acceptable to the people around them.
The researchers tested 155 white children aged between six and sixteen, assessing their responses to stories to discover the extent of their conscious and unconscious racial prejudice. The children were then split into groups according to how acceptable they thought it was to discriminate against black children. Some children were told that they were being videotaped and that the material would be kept as a record of their answers, whilst others were shown that the cameras in their rooms were not working. In subsequent tests, children who believed they were being recorded and would be judged on the views they expressed toned down their racist opinions and presented more positive reactions to black people than they had before. In Dr Rutland's words: "This suggests they were controlling their explicit ethnic bias in line with what is generally regarded as acceptable."
...racially prejudiced white teenagers are simply very skilful at repressing their attitudes...
Previous research has suggested that children show signs of racial prejudice as early as three years of age, that these attitudes peak around the ages of seven and eight and decrease in adolescence. However, Dr Rutland's study indicates that rather than becoming more enlightened and tolerant in their racial attitudes, racially prejudiced white teenagers are simply very skilful at repressing their attitudes when they feel it is in their own interests to do so.
Dr Rutland points to the impact his research should have on the work schools will need to do to manage relationships between their students if they are to be more successful in eliminating racial discrimination among them.
For further information contact:
- Dr Adam Rutland, Department of Psychology, University of Kent, Canterbury, Email: a.rutland@kent.ac.uk