Can Fostering Children's Ability to Challenge Sexism Improve Critical Analysis, Internalization, and Enactment of Inclusive, Egalitarian Peer Relationships?

Erin Pahlke, Rebecca S. Bigler, Carol Martin

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

36 Scopus citations

Abstract

Elementary school-age children (N = 137, 70 boys, ages 4-10) were randomly assigned to receive one of two types of lessons aimed at increasing the inclusiveness of peer relations and improving children's ability to identify bias in media. Children in the pro-social condition were taught to identify and respond to undesirable/unfair social behaviors (e.g., teasing), whereas children in the pro-egalitarian condition were taught to respond to these same behaviors, with additional attention to gender bias (e.g., teasing about gender role nonconformity). After five lessons, children completed immediate and 6-month delayed measures of egalitarian attitudes, intergroup liking, responses to hypothetical peers' sexist remarks, and ability to identify sexism in media. The lessons did not differentially affect children's gender egalitarian attitudes and intergroup liking. As expected, however, children in the pro-egalitarian condition were better able to identify sexism in media and to respond to peers' sexist comments than were children in the pro-social condition.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)115-133
Number of pages19
JournalJournal of Social Issues
Volume70
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - Mar 2014

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • General Social Sciences

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