The concept of prejudice-conscious education. Possibilities and limits of its use in day care centers

Table of contents

1. Introduction

2. Prejudices and stereotypes
2.1 Definitions of terms
2.1.1 Prejudices
2.1.2 Stereotyping, demarcation from the concept of prejudice
2.2 Development of prejudices and stereotypes
2.2.1 Development of pre-prejudices
2.2.2 Developing prejudice through direct experience
2.2.3 Importance of society for the development of prejudice
2.2.4 Other factors influencing the formation of prejudices
2.3 Function of prejudices and stereotypes
2.4 Problems and consequences of prejudices
2.5 Prevention of prejudice

3. Discrimination and racism
3.1 Disambiguations
3.3 Levels of discrimination

4. The anti-bias approach
4.1 Emergence of the concept
4.2 Objectives of the anti-bias approach
4.3 Key elements of the approach
4.3.1 Mission statement and basic assumptions

5. The Children's Worlds project
5.1 Content
5.2 Adaptation and development project
5.3 Dissemination project
5.4 Project for the qualification of skilled workers

6. Possibilities and limits of use
6.1 Materials and design of the furnishings
6.2 Pedagogical professionals
6.3 Implementation of action strategies
6.4 Working with Persona Dolls
6.5 Cooperation with parents

7. Conclusion

Bibliography

1. Introduction

"What a dreary era in which it is easier to shatter an atom than a prejudice!"

(Albert Einstein)

This quote I have chosen to get started with the topic gives an idea of the complexity hidden in prejudice research. But how is the concept of prejudice to be defined? What factors contribute to the emergence of a prejudice? The quote of the relativity theorist Einstein first of all makes it clear that prejudices are characterized by their enormous tenacity. But why is it so difficult to break down prejudices? What impact do they have on early childhood education and development? And how is it possible, both in children and adults, to develop a considered approach to prejudices in everyday kindergarten life?

I would like to address all these issues in this work. At the beginning, it should be clarified what lies behind the central terms "prejudices" and "stereotypes" and to what extent they are to be distinguished from each other. This creates the basis for the following chapters, which deal with pre-prejudices as well as the development of prejudices in infancy and through one's own experiences. I will also refer to the various factors that determine the formation or appropriation of prejudices, with particular emphasis being placed on the influence of society. Functions and dangers related to the formation of prejudice will also be the subject of my work, before I explain why preventive measures are of great importance for the acquisition of a prejudice-conscious attitude.

Every person has faced discrimination at some point in his or her life, even though he or she may not have been directly affected by it. There are different forms and extents in which exclusion and disparagement can occur. In the second chapter, therefore, the concepts of "discrimination" and "racism", which are also extremely relevant for the development of the topic, are to be defined and explained, which includes an explanation of the individual stages, which differ from each other in terms of their intensity. I would also like to mention the various levels at which discriminatory actions are shown.

The second half of my work is dedicated to the concrete foundations and action measures for the implementation of prejudice-conscious education in daycare centers. The anti-bias approach from California, whose origin, content and goals I will extensively address in the elaboration, offers daycare centers an opportunity to actively fight against discrimination and to achieve respect and appreciation of diversity and diversity in equal measure, in which it is dedicated to the compensation of imbalances. This approach also provided the basis for the German project. Children's Worlds, which will be discussed afterwards.

At the end of this work, in addition to the opportunities that the implementation of the concept of prejudice-conscious education brings with it and the hurdles that have to be overcome, there should be solutions that facilitate the handling of biased attitudes and prejudices in the daycare center. The possibilities and limits in practice, in which the appreciation and consideration of individuality is the focus, are to be shown not only in relation to the action strategies, materials and methods, but above all with regard to the competencies of the specialists, whose further development and professionalization emphasizes and includes the concept of prejudice-conscious education.

2. Prejudices and stereotypes

2.1 Definitions of terms

The present work deals with an educational approach based on the realization that the development and adoption of prejudices and stereotypes in society is consistently up-to-date. Since the terms "prejudice" and "stereotype" are often mentioned in the following chapters for this reason, they should first be defined and distinguished from each other.

2.1.1 Prejudices

As the word "prejudice" itself says, a person, a group or a fact is judged, before even own, possibly opposite experiences could be made. This often leads to false conclusions about the character traits or behaviors of a person or group of people. The American psychologist Gordon W. Allport describes such a quick judgment as a prejudgement and thus distinguishes this concept from the concept of prejudice. The former is done quickly and can be revised by the acquisition of knowledge and corrective information that was previously unknown to the person making the judgment. A prejudice, on the other hand, remains maintained even against all clarifications and justifications about the untruthfulness of the judgment (cf. Allport 1971, p. 23ff).

In most cases, these foreprejudicments and prejudices refer to groups of people to whom certain characteristics are attributed. In addition, they often show a pejorative attitude towards this group. Allport refers to categorizing attributions of this kind with the concept of "ethnic prejudices" and defined them as "a negative or hostile attitude towards a person who belongs to a group and is therefore supposed to have the same objectionable characteristics that are attributed to that group" (ibid., p. 21).

The causes and roots of prejudices lie in the past and are connected with the historical backgrounds of different cultures and religions as well as social action and behavior. Even if much has already changed and developed since the times of slavery or the destruction of human beings, there are still sufficient assumptions and speculations from the past, which are repeatedly used. This is due to the fact that certain images and contexts from the past are firmly anchored in people's minds (cf. Preissing 2003, p. 28).

Since the term "prejudice" sounds like an untrue fact, it is usually connoted with a n ega- tiven meaning. Allport explains in his work The Nature of Prejudice however, that prejudices can also exist in a positive sense: Through our personal values, we prefer certain people and things and put them above others. This, in turn, can pose a problem insofar as the preference of one group automatically entails the disadvantage or disparagement of another group (cf. Allport 1971, p. 39). On which directions prejudices can continue to develop and what consequences this can have for affected persons or groups of people, I will go into more detail in chapter three.

2.1.2 Stereotyping, demarcation from the concept of prejudice

If one interprets the term "stereotype", in which one translates the sub-terms "stereo" and "typos" literally from the Greek, one obtains the definition "rigid pattern", which is an apt name for an existing template that people use to process social situations or to assess other people. People they encounter are seen as part of a group with certain characteristics and are therefore pressed into an already existing pattern of characteristics or behavior. This categorization and generalization facilitates the processing of situations and the allocation of persons into the own or a foreign group. According to Klauer, stereotyping also serves to interpret "possibly ambiguous and unclear events" (Klauer 2008, p. 24). Stereotypes give the impression of knowing the behaviors and characteristics of certain people in advance due to the subjective knowledge of their category. An experiment on social categorization also showed that such an assignment is due to a spontaneous processing method based on categorical thinking (ibid., p. 23ff).

Although stereotypes are usually based on one's own experiences, the already existing images and ideas in the head influence human perception so strongly that even things that have never been seen or personally experienced by a person are defined and supposedly known. Typifications take place not only towards other persons in society, but even towards each person towards himself, which supports him in the development of his own identity (cf. Schmid Mast/Krings 2008, p. 42ff).

A concise aspect that distinguishes the terms "prejudice" and "stereotype" from each other is emotionality. While stereotypes are more of a kind of cognitive belief about a category, feelings and feelings are often involved in the expression of prejudice. Whether something triggers an emotional reaction in a person depends on whether the facts interest him or even directly affect him. It also plays a role in which area his interests and inclinations lie and which things a person likes. The expression of supposed knowledge about a person or group for which there is neither special interest nor emotional connections can therefore be described as a stereotype (cf. Förster 2008, p. 22ff).

2.2 Development of prejudices and stereotypes

The previous definitions show that prejudices and stereotypes arise from category thinking based on assignments of certain characteristics. But how can biased attitudes and ideas about certain facts arise in a toddler whose experience is still very limited? What does it depend on what prejudices children develop?

2.2.1 Development of pre-prejudices

Based on learning-theoretical approaches, children acquire prejudices - as well as any other knowledge - from their experiences with and in their environment. Even if they are still unprejudiced at the time of their birth, attempts at biased attitudes can quickly become apparent (cf. Meier 2010, p. 6). The American professor Derman-Sparks also believes that children can develop prejudices without having already been in contact with the persons or groups concerned:

"One learns prejudices from contact with the prevailing attitudes in a society, not from contact with individuals" (Wagner 2001, p. 2).

With this thesis, she describes the development of prejudices as a learning and thus an adoption of the opinions and attitudes that are represented in the immediate environment of a child. She also emphasizes that those judgments adopted by children do not necessarily correspond to the truth, but are "made socially" (ibid.).

The development of bias represents a process that begins in infancy and then continues for several years. Ulich states: "Compared to older children or adults, younger children actually react directly to the respective concrete situation, but at the same time they form generalizing concepts" (Ulich 2001, p. 64). These so-called pre-prejudices arise in children at the age of about three years through the many indirect experiences with diversity in their lives, but also with exclusions and labels that they collect in everyday life. Media also play a major role in this context, such as books or films, which often make use of different ideas, clichés and stereotypes that are already widespread and firmly anchored in society. If you observe children in their playful activities, you can also see that even at a young age they are able to not only unconsciously perceive preferences, exclusions or highlights, but actually actively. They bring experiences and experiences of everyday life, which are connected with prejudiced actions or statements of the persons of their environment, into their game. In this way, children deal with the experiences and process them. Such a self-confrontation manifests itself, for example, during the course of the game by deviations of the regular behavior towards a person and in the justifications and justifications related to it. This is primarily directed against persons who differ from their family members and from the children themselves (cf. Trisch/Winkelmann 2007, p. 112).

According to a study in the USA, children can detect differences and physical characteristics that deviate from the norm as early as the first year of life, which can be seen from their statements and questions. With increasing age, the children become more curious and want to find out how these differences come about. As a result, in this phase of development they begin to establish their own theses and assumptions about the presence of diversity (cf. Derman-Sparks 2011, p. 7).

2.2.2 Developing prejudice through direct experience

In the course of their first years of kindergarten and kindergarten, children make their own direct experiences with children who come from different nations, have a different skin color than themselves or speak a language that is still unknown to them.

Whether it is statements by other children, behaviors of parents in the presence of the children or stereotypical patterns of action of educators towards children from other cultures: The fact that children themselves perceive and react to differences even at preschool age has been suggested by research in the USA. Petra Wagner, a graduate pedagogue, has summarized the insights that the educationalist Glenda Mac Naughton was able to gain with regard to the development of identity and attitude towards others through studies in Australian daycare centers: Among the first characteristics that children can differentiate and evaluate are visual differences and characteristics that suggest a different country of origin, such as skin color.B, hair structure or language. This can be the case from the age of about nine months. In children from about three years of age, it is noticeable that white skin color is evaluated positively and black skin color is evaluated negatively. This can be seen equally in all children, regardless of the skin color they have themselves. This preference will continue to exist. Children between the ages of five and eight not only expressed negative opinion about people who spoke different languages during the studies, but also valued light-skinned people more than blacks. Such attitudes and pre-prejudices are also present when children with different skin colours or other external characteristics that differ from the majority visit the institution (cf. Wagner 2009).

In groups in which children with physical characteristics and disabilities were present, it was observed that the children were more likely to adhere to non-disabled children when freely choosing the play partners, but it was also visible that children are more likely to show more positive attitudes and assumed behavior the more detailed physical peculiarities and impairments were discussed in the kindergarten. In the socioeconomic field, research showed that children also recognize the differences and roughly assign the others to the extremes of 'poor' and 'rich'. Those children who are considered to be more affluent are also more popular play partners than those who have a lower socioeconomic status (ibid.).

The fact that children already have a picture of what expectations society expects of girls or boys with regard to their actions is, for example, in their behaviour in certain situations or in the selection of their playful

Activities to watch. With the development of their gender identity, children not only learn about differences and characteristics, but also increasingly distinguish themselves from children of the opposite sex. Mac Naughton's research also reveals that children assign the male sex a higher position in society than women. However, this result may also have been due to the influencing behaviour of the kindergarten teachers, which in the studies has shown a gender-dependent unequal treatment. The images and attitudes that the children develop and internalize already at kindergarten age become more and more solidified over time and are made their own (cf. Wagner 2009).

2.2.3 Importance of society for the development of prejudice

When looking for reasons for the development of prejudice, it is of great importance to focus not only on a person in detail, but also on the social context. Each individual is influenced by the respective environment in which he moves and resides from birth. Numerous different influencing factors - be it persons, institutions or political circumstances - influence the thinking and behavior of every person through statements or actions. It often happens that these individuals, groups or systems express themselves in a biased manner or engage in preferential or oppressive actions. As a result, the individual is confronted with prejudices in various ways as well as in various situations and it can lead to an adoption of the thought structures or behaviors. Furthermore, there are various groups in our society whose membership is determined by certain characteristics. This leads to classifications, so that some groups have a higher social status than others. Through high regard, people belonging to better-off groups are not only favoured in many respects, but also have a certain power and can thus determine which attitudes, views and values are valid. The concrete definition and definition of these values and norms as well as the evaluation and downgrading of those who deviate from them, ensures the emergence and maintenance of prejudices. This is supported by various influences such as media, laws and systems, but also by everyday conversations with friends and acquaintances, in which prejudices are repeatedly confirmed and stabilized so that they remain anchored in our society (cf. Trisch/Winkelmann 2007, p. 112ff).

The classification by group membership in our society represents the beginning of a hopeless cycle in the problem of prejudice. because: Those who have little power find it difficult to change anything. As a result, the positions of power in society and thus also the developed prejudices, which usually act as a reason for the disparagement of opinions and persons, are preserved.

2.2.4 Other factors influencing the formation of prejudices

As explained in the previous chapter, society is an important factor in the development of prejudice. Which causes and elements also contribute to this, I would like to make clear on the basis of Heinemann's dissertation, which summarizes the influencing factors on the formation of prejudice in the individual as well as in the social context - with reference to the results of several meta-analyses. Heinemann cites both the influence of emotions and the course of cognitive development as the reason for the phased increase in the formation of prejudice. The adoption of prejudices in children therefore never takes place entirely without reflection. Children link the pre-lived prejudices with certain, previous events or experiences, for which reason biased statements are always to be seen as a sign of cognitive maturity (cf. INA/ISTA 2012d).

In the process of world appropriation, many influences and stimuli flow into a child, which he tries to sort through group formation. These assignments are made in early childhood, in which cognitive development is not yet very advanced, on the basis of the obvious and visible features. Depending on how close the child himself is to a group, he assesses their characteristics as positive or negative. Thus, the qualities and feelings that are associated with attachment persons are much more positive than attributes that connect children with strangers. The characteristics evaluated as negative are usually the starting point for the formation of prejudices. In children from the age of about seven, however, this decreases again, as over the years the ability to perceive individual characteristics of a person has developed through the further development of their cognitive structures. From then on, the attitudes and attitudes of the parents play a role, through which the children are strongly influenced (cf. Heinemann 2012, p. 26f).

In this respect, the family is also an influencing factor in the formation of prejudices. Due to the role model function that parents embody for their children, the children orient themselves to their behavior and often adopt their opinions and attitudes. This also applies to negative judgments and biased attitudes. One reason for this takeover is the harvesting of praise and recognition (cf. Heinemann 2012, p. 36). Another important aspect to be considered in the context of human prejudice is empathy. It can have an effect in the form of cognitive empathy insofar as it leads to a decrease in prejudice, because a child is able to put himself in the shoes of another person and can thus understand his thinking and acting. Emotional empathy, on the other hand, causes a reduction of prejudices through emotional impulses, which are triggered in the child itself by compassion for the experiences of others. Based on the results of the meta-analysis by Raabe and Beelmann, Heinemann proves that the social status of children also has an impact on the formation of prejudices (cf. Heinemann 2012, p. 28f).

In summary, it can be said that children of the social majority increasingly develop prejudices against the social minority in the age section of early childhood, whereas conversely this is only the case in the age section from about six years (cf. Heinemann 2012, p. 24f). In addition to the described cognitive and social cognitive influencing factors on the development of prejudices, according to Fleischhacker, neurobiological causes are also responsible for the development of prejudices against other people, which, however, are also related to human emotions and cognition. New stimuli that man encounters have an effect on the limbic system. The evaluation and the connection with certain emotions are then shown by an emotional or physiological reaction of the body. As a result, people often react negatively or even anxiously to the unknown, since no positive experiences or feelings are yet linked to these persons or characteristics in the brain structures (cf. Fleischhacker 2007, p. 25ff).

Further explanations for the formation of prejudices are available through the psychodynamic as well as the conflict-theoretical approach: While the former explains the development of prejudice with the compensation of a person's frustration and anger by projecting onto another, the conflict-theoretical approach assumes that negative attitudes and the emergence of prejudices are caused by the fact that competitive behavior develops between individual groups due to irreconcilable interests (cf. Geschke 2012; Meier 2010).

2.3 Function of prejudices and stereotypes

In addition to the causes of the development of biased attitudes and stereotypes, it remains to be clarified what purpose prejudices serve and what effects they have on our psyche. Through research results in the fields of discrimination and race research, four different psychological functions of prejudice could be defined (cf. Bergler 1976, p. 104):

1. Knowledge function

This function states that prejudices serve as an aid to classify and explain the complexities of the world. Through categorization, ignorance takes on structure and the events of everyday life can be better controlled. Although this has a relieving function for humans, objectivity in the encounter of previously unknown persons and situations suffers from it, since the formation of judgment is influenced by existing acceptance systems (cf. Bergler 1976, p. 104ff). By quickly assigning people, people save time and effort, as they do not have to deal with the current circumstances, but can fall back on experiences of their previous life and thus be spared any further confrontation with the situation. For this reason, a person transfers experiences with individual persons and experiences of certain situations to all other members of his group (cf. Förster 2008, p. 268f).

2. Adaptive function

As already mentioned in the previous chapter, the formation of prejudices has to do with joining groups of people with the same attitude or similar characteristics and consequently also with identical prejudices. By engaging, adopting and identifying the individual group members with these opinions, a process of rapprochement and insertion into the group begins. The motivation for this comes from the prospect of a reward, e.g. the recognition of the already existing group to be won (cf. Thomas 2006).

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