Exploring and Evaluating School-Based Interventions to Reduce Prejudice

ABSTRACT

Three studies examined ways of talking about race and racial evaluations in order to reduce rather than raise prejudice. The first study evaluated an 11-week classroom program designed to encourage, through teacher-led discussion, the processing of internal attributes of people rather than their race. In a second study, high-prejudice White students were paired with a low-prejudice friend to discuss their racial evaluations. The third study explored ways thatstudents orally respond when they overhear a peer's demeaning racial remark and the conflicting pressures influencing their interventions. Results overall support the assumption that talking about race and racial attitudes can reduce prejudice under certain conditions, and that peers may be valuable sources of influence in this dialogue.