How stable is children's affective orientation toward different ethnic groups?

Most previous research on children‟s ethnic awareness and pre-judice has been based on cross-sectional studies; hence we have little in-formation on the intra-individual changes that occur in this area of devel-opment. Is there a stable developmental sequence of the different com-ponents of ethnic a...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Enesco, Ileana, Guerrero Moreno, Silvia, Lago, Oliva, Rodríguez, Purificación
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Fecha de publicación:2011
País:España
Institución:Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha
Repositorio:RUIdeRA. Repositorio Institucional de la UCLM
OAI Identifier:oai:ruidera.uclm.es:10578/19812
Acceso en línea:http://hdl.handle.net/10578/19812
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Preschool children
Attitudes
Ethnicity
Race
Ingroup
Out-group
Preescolares
Actitudes
Etnia
Raza
Endogrupo
Exogrupo
Descripción
Sumario:Most previous research on children‟s ethnic awareness and pre-judice has been based on cross-sectional studies; hence we have little in-formation on the intra-individual changes that occur in this area of devel-opment. Is there a stable developmental sequence of the different com-ponents of ethnic awareness? Does ingroup preference precede outgroup rejection, as cross-sectional studies do suggest? And do children maintain the same affective orientation toward different out-groups? We con-ducted a longitudinal study with 50 Spanish children aged 4 to 5 years (first measure) and 5 to 6 years (second measure). We assessed several as-pects of their ethnic awareness and attitudes toward four groups (Spa-niards, Latin Americans, Africans and Asians), within a computer-game context. Results showed a significant ingroup positivity but a lack of out-group negativity, both at time 1 and 2. In fact, children‟s negative attribu-tions to the ingroup and to the out-groups did not differ. On the other hand, the longitudinal analyses revealed that most children did not change the intensity of their affective orientation to each group, an issue that has received little attention in previous studies.