Protecting Youth from Racism and Prejudice: Contexts,Interventions,and Future Directions

In the first half of the 21st century, it is clear that racism and prejudice are prevalent worldwide. This is evident in news stories focused on the BlackLivesMatter movement, worldwide nationalism, the refugee and immigration crises in North American and Europe, and violent extremism. Racism exists when a dominant racial group devalues and disempowers other racial groups defined by them as inferior (Tatum, 2017; Roberts & Rizzo, 2021; Williams et al., 2019). In this special section, we treat race as a broad social category, “based on nationality, ethnicity, phenotypic, or other markers of social difference, which captures differential access to power and resources in society” (Williams et al., 2019), and we define the biased attitudes that favor one’s own racial group over others as prejudice, and the organized social system of prejudiced attitudes and beliefs, biased media, and biased policies and institutions as racism (Tatum, 2017; Roberts & Rizzo, 2021; Williams et al., 2019).

As research has consistently shown, across the world, racism and prejudice begin in childhood—as children can be perpetrators, victims, and bystanders of racism and prejudice (Raabe & Beelmann, 2011). For example, in 2018, two-thirds of surveyed K-12 teachers in the U.S. had witnessed at least one hate crime or incident at their school in the previous 4 months, most often because of a student’s race/ethnicity or immigration status (Costello & Dillard, 2018). Similarly, according to a 2019 survey of refugees who came to Germany between 2013 and 2018, 51% were insulted, 14% threatened, and 12% were victims of physical attacks (Beelmann et al., 2019). In Australia, more than half of students from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander and Pacific Islander/Māori, South Asian, African, and Middle Eastern backgrounds experienced racial discrimination (Priest et al., 2019). Given these high rates of racist experiences facing youth, reducing racism and prejudice is of critical importance. As Beelmann and Lutterbach state in this issue, “interventions against prejudice in childhood and adolescence can be considered as one of the most necessary societal investments to reduce not only the manifold negative consequences for victims…but also the effects of prejudice and discrimination on the political climate in society.”

Although racism and prejudice are still prevalent, there is also a wealth of empirical research on how racial prejudice is expressed in childhood, how it originates and changes over time, how it shapes individuals in all domains of their lives, and how their family, community, school, and national context matters (e.g., Raabe & Beelmann, 2011). The evidence is also clear that racism and prejudice are public health problems that have yet to be ameliorated, and are associated with compromised health, academic, socioemotional, and economic outcomes for youth (e.g., Brown, 2017; Priest et al., 2013). There is also an emerging scientific basis for how to reduce prejudice in children (e.g., Aboud et al., 2012; Johnson & Aboud, 2017; Rutland & Killen, 2015). Yet, despite these robust fields of research, very few comprehensive reviews of the findings across perspectives (e.g., from developmental, educational, and social psychology, family studies, and public health) exist. Further, very few reviews capture an international perspective, despite racism and prejudice being global problems. This special issue synthesizes the latest research on racism and prejudice, and highlights the best evidence for reducing it in children and adolescents. Reducing racism in youth is a critical step toward improving the society we all live in.

This special section is the result of a team of diverse scholars convened in 2019 by Society for Research in Child Development, who were tasked with evaluating the state of the science with the goal of providing the best recommendations for how to improve children and adolescent’s attitudes and behavior towards others from different ethnic, racial, cultural, religious, and nationality backgrounds. In this special section of Review of General Psychology, the authors review the latest research on the development and consequences of racism and prejudice, with a focus on what is known, and not known, about reducing children’s racial biases and enhancing individual and collective well-being. By focusing on research over the past two decades, and including a range of international perspectives, this special section helps make theoretical, conceptual, and methodological advances on the topic of reducing and protecting children from racism.

The special section starts with two papers focused on the big picture issues of reducing children’s racial prejudices. The first paper, by Maykel Verkuyten (Verkuyten, 2021), details a theoretical approach useful for understanding how and why children develop prejudice. As he describes, children first start by categorizing themselves into a racial group, and then apply stereotypes about the group to the self, positively evaluating the group as a way to positively evaluate themselves. As he notes, however, “most of the research on children’s and adolescent’s intergroup biases focuses on individual perceptions, feelings and beliefs, and finding effective ways for trying to change the negative attitudes. Yet, bias, exclusion, and discrimination does not happen in a vacuum but involve social processes that result from interactions within and between groups.” He examines how collective action worldwide challenges discriminatory practices and can increase social justice in the context of school or local neighborhood, and on a regional or national level.

Next, Andreas Beelmann and Sebastian Lutterbach (Beelmann & Lutterbach, 2021) focus on how to prevent prejudice in children. As they note, many prejudice reduction interventions have been unsuccessful, largely because they lack important developmental and conceptual considerations and solid experimental designs. They argue that reducing prejudice in children requires thinking about the “social norms within the social context of families and communities” and how interventions should include “parents, families, teachers, schools, communities, and even societies without just taking children and adolescents as the primary target group.”

The next two papers in the special section focus on important sources of protection against racism and prejudices. One source of protection, within youth themselves, is their ethnic/racial identity; the second is their families. Deborah Rivas-Drake, Bernardette Pinetta, Linda Juang, and Abunya Agi (Rivas-Drake et al., 2021), researchers from the U.S. and Germany, delineate three pathways by which youth’s ethnic/racial identity can be a mechanism for positive intergroup interactions and collective well-being. First, they describe how youth’s racial/ethnic identity (their understanding of what their race/ethnicity means to them personally and for interacting with others) helps them both appreciate differences and find commonalities across groups. Second, it can be both a “promotive and protective resource for marginalized youth.” Third, a positive racial/ethnic identity can be a powerful source of inspiration in disrupting existing marginalization. Like Verkuyten (this issue), Rivas-Drake and colleagues point to ways that youth may be motivated to participate in community actions for social change, in this case by developing strong and positive ethnic/racial identities.

In the next article, Tuğçe Aral, Linda Juang, Miriam Schwarzenthal, and Deborah Rivas-Drake (Aral et al., 2021) review distinct areas of research to describe the diverse ways in which families socialize children around racism. First, they describe how BIPOC or other racial/ethnic minority families provide sources of support for youth resisting racism. They then describe how White or racial/ethnic majority families may contribute to racism itself, by socializing their children in ways that increase racial biases.

The final three papers in the special section focus on the importance of racially and ethnically diverse connections and interactions in reducing racism and prejudice among children and adolescents. Linda R. Tropp, Fiona Ann White, Christina L.Rucinski, and Colin Tredoux (Tropp et al., 2021), researchers from the U.S., Australia, and South Africa, review international research on intergroup contact. They focus on how indirect contact strategies—such as extended contact, vicarious contact, and online contact—are viable ways to reduce children’s prejudice when diverse settings are not possible. Like Beelmann and Lutterbach (2021) suggest, they address how the prejudice-reducing effects of intergroup contact differ across community contexts, such as in areas with high levels of conflict. In the next article, Melanie Killen, Katherine Luken Raz, and Sandra Graham (Killen et al., 2021) examine one critical benefit of diverse settings: cross-group friendships. As they detail, “same race/ethnicity friendships can set in motion a process whereby youth develop stronger connections to who they are (racial identity), which in turns gives them the confidence to both embrace and accept outgroup members.” Finally, Christina Rucinski (Rucinski, 2021) examines how racially diverse interactions can have benefits that extend beyond positive intergroup interactions. She notes how children and youth’s experiences in racially and ethnically diverse schools and classrooms can actually improve their individual development in academic, social-emotional, and executive function domains.

Taken together, these papers synthesize what is known about improving the lives of children and adolescents by reducing prejudice and racism and enhancing collective well-being. More importantly, these researchers point us in new directions, helping guide future research to tackle the ever-evolving biases facing children from various ethnic, racial, cultural, religious, and nationality backgrounds.