Teaching Children Fairness: Decreasing Gender Prejudice Among Children

Elementary school children (66 girls and 55 boys, aged 10–13 years) in the Western United States participated in a program designed to teach them about fairness and to decrease their engagement in gender‐prejudice behaviors. The study utilized a pretest/posttest design comparing students in the trea...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Analyses of social issues and public policy 2011-12, Vol.11 (1), p.61-81
Main Authors: Brinkman, Britney G., Jedinak, Allison, Rosen, Lee A., Zimmerman, Toni S.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Boys
Children
Educational policy
Elementary school students
Elementary Schools
Equity
Gender equity
Girls
Learning
Prejudice
Sex
Sex Stereotypes
Sexism
Social psychology
Stereotypes
Students
Teachers
Teaching
United States
Citations: Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Elementary school children (66 girls and 55 boys, aged 10–13 years) in the Western United States participated in a program designed to teach them about fairness and to decrease their engagement in gender‐prejudice behaviors. The study utilized a pretest/posttest design comparing students in the treatment group to students in a control group. Children and teachers completed measures regarding the children's engagement of gender prejudice among their classmates, and students participated in focus groups after completing the program. At posttest, students in the treatment group reported experiencing less gender‐prejudice by their classmates than students in the control group. Teachers also reported fewer gender‐prejudice behaviors by the students in the treatment group. Qualitative analyses of the focus groups revealed that the students reported learning to challenge gender role stereotypes and endorsed a commitment to treating boys and girls fairly.
ISSN:1529-7489
1530-2415
DOI:10.1111/j.1530-2415.2010.01222.x