be compared directly – data that are valid in addressing the theoretical questions of how and why children develop intergroup bias.
2 Documenting the Development of Prejudice, Ethnic
some of this variability. Bagley and Young (1998) found that while most 5- to 6-year-old Black children of Caribbean descent had a pro-White (and anti-Black) bias, most Black children of recent African descent had no bias. However, parental attitudes did not always explain these differences (Branch & Newcombe, 1986), and neither did attending an inte- grated or segregated school (Fox & Jordan, 1973; Stephan, 1999). Research on Mexican- American and Asian children showed similar heterogeneity at this young age (e.g., Bernal, Knight, Ocampo, Garza, & Cota, 1993; Fox & Jordan, 1973; Milner, 1973; Morland &
Hwang, 1981), though Native Indian children were largely pro-White (e.g., Corenblum
& Annis, 1993).
By the time minority children are between 7 and 10 years old, any pro-White bias seems to have disappeared, and they either no longer exhibit any clear bias or express pro-ingroup bias (Aboud & Doyle, 1995; Averhart & Bigler, 1997; Bernal et al., 1993;
Corenblum & Annis, 1993; Davey, 1983; Katz, Sohn, & Zalk, 1975; Kelly & Duckitt, 1995; Semaj, 1980; Williams & Morland, 1976). In general, most studies did not reveal any gender difference in ethnic attitudes (see Aboud, 1988). However, there was evidence that some minority girls felt more pro-White than did minority boys (Fox & Jordan, 1973; Marsh, 1970).
What are we to make of this early variability in minority children’s attitudes? Some have interpreted White preference as self-hatred. However, group- and self-esteem are not correlated – Black children with a negative evaluation of their ethnic group simultane- ously show high self-esteem (Rosenberg & Simmons, 1972; Verkuyten, 1994).
Others have suggested that minority children are confused about their group identity.
This is not supported by the evidence. Two measures of ethnic identification have been used: selecting a label to describe oneself (label matching), and selecting the doll or person one most looks like (perceptual matching). Minority children express ethnic self- identification at an earlier age when the question is direct, as with the use of an ethnic label or a specific question about skin color, than when it is based on an ambiguous ques- tion about global appearance (e.g., Bernal et al., 1993; Greenwald & Oppenheim, 1968;
Katz & Kofkin, 1997; Ramsey & Myers, 1990; Vaughan, 1987). Children who know their ingroup label may still say they are most similar to an outgroup stimulus. Clearly they may look most like an outgroup member in all respects but ethnicity. However, minority children are less likely spontaneously to use ethnic labels to describe themselves than White children, and perhaps do not feel clearly identified as simply and solely members of one ethnic group. Their position in a largely White society is bicultural in that they are members of both their ethnic community and the White society (Cross, 1987; Phinney & Devich-Navarro, 1997).
The greater variability in minority children’s attitudes points to the need for a multi- variate explanation of the acquisition and development of ethnic attitudes. While major- ity children receive consistent information from their environment to help them form ethnic categories, preferences, and identification, minority children receive variable infor- mation. Not surprisingly, their preferences and identifications reflect this variability. An analogy to language acquisition may be instructive here. Children exposed to two lan- guages may use words from both languages in the same sentence until they sort out the distinctions between the two language systems.
Ethnic categorization
Although forming ethnic categories of people and identifying with a category does not in and of itself imply prejudice, these can be the first steps that pave the way to differ- ential evaluation of ingroups and outgroups (see a review of the adult research by Brewer
& Brown, 1998). Moreover, categories foster perceived outgroup homogeneity, which is more directly linked with prejudice. In contrast, the actual content of ethnic categories, known as stereotypes, is very fragmentary in childhood (Bar-Tal, 1996; Ramsey, 1991).
In this section we ask: At what age do children become aware of ethnic groups and treat them as undifferentiated categories distinct from one another?
Measures of matching, sorting, identifying and comparing allow the child to use perceptual, cognitive, or verbal labels to categorize. The use of perceptual/cognitive cri- teria appears at an earlier age (Katz & Kofkin, 1997; Ramsey & Myers, 1990; Vaughan, 1987; Williams & Morland, 1976) than verbal labels (Bar-Tal, 1996; Bernal et al., 1993;
Corenblum & Annis, 1993; Greenwald & Oppenheim, 1968; Gregor & McPherson, 1966), though it is not always clear what criteria are being used when children sort or match by appearance. While verbally labeled categories develop somewhat later than per- ceptually based ones, children reach ceiling levels of accuracy in their labels relatively early.
Minority and majority children progress through this sequence at roughly the same ages.
While young children’s dichotomous sorting and verbal labeling indicate the early development of ethnic awareness, a more serious aspect of categorization is the over-use of ethnic categories to mask individual features. This is demonstrated with measures that highlight a fixation on ethnic classification over multiple classification. For example, chil- dren have been asked to sort pictures of people into as many groups as they like, based on whatever criteria are salient to them (“Make groups of children who go together or who are similar”). In some studies, race was a particularly salient cue for sorting, more salient than gender or age (e.g., Davey, 1983; Ramsey, 1991), whereas in others race was less salient (Bennett, Dewberry, & Yeeles, 1991; Bigler & Liben, 1993; Hirschfeld, 1996;
Verkuyten, Masson, & Elffers, 1995). When children were asked to reclassify pictures they had already sorted based on one dimension, for example, race, they found this dif- ficult at 4 and 5 years, but generally were able to resort at 6 or 7 years (Bigler & Liben, 1993). More difficult was the simultaneous multiple classification task which requires that the child use two criteria such as race and gender to classify people.
Rise of the homogeneity effect – the mistaken perception that all Black people are the same and all White people are the same – has been demonstrated directly by asking chil- dren to rate the similarity of pairs of stimuli or verbally describe what is similar and dif- ferent. Children aged 4 and 5 often rate same-race stimuli as different, thus indicating attention to individual differences as much as ethnic differences. At 5 and 6 years, their perception of individual differences declines in favor of ethnic differences, an indi- cation of the homogeneity effect. Between 5 and 12 years, there are great differences between children in the degree to which they perceive outgroup homogeneity, which in turn is associated with prejudice (Davey, 1983; Doyle & Aboud, 1995; Katz et al., 1975).
In summary, children become aware of ethnicity at a young age and begin to use it to form categories of people at 4 or 5 years. Once formed, these categories, which may initially be based on perceptual or verbal cues, eventually become elaborated in content through the acquisition of knowledge about an ethnic group (e.g., Bernal et al., 1993).
Although at first this knowledge may be organized in a simplistic structure, accentuating homogeneity within ethnic groups, later in middle childhood it can become more elab- orated in structure, thus allowing children to differentiate within ethnic groups (e.g., Bar- Tal, 1996; Schofield, 1982) and to use multiple cross-cutting categories (Verkuyten et al., 1995). Homogeneity and the inability to use multiple categories are associated with higher prejudice.
Intergroup peer relations
Voluntary contact with peers and the development of stable relationships is the most important index of intergroup behavior among children. This is obviously best studied in schools or neighborhoods where children from different ethnic groups are available as potential friends or acquaintances. Typically, voluntary contact has been equally high in a classroom setting with same- and cross-race peers, but outside the classroom, relation- ships with same-race peers were more common (e.g., Finkelstein & Haskins, 1983;
Schofield, 1982). Age was also an important variable in that White children in particu- lar had fewer cross-race friends with age (DuBois & Hirsch, 1990; Hallinan & Teixeira, 1987; Shrum, Cheek, & Hunter, 1988). Most studies do not report the number of chil- dren who have close cross-race friends, but when they do, the percentages appear to be less than 50% during pre- and early adolescence (Aboud & Mendelson, 1999; DuBois
& Hirsch, 1990; Graham & Cohen, 1997). Although studies generally report gender effects, there has been no consistent finding that girls or boys have more cross-race friends.
Black, Hispanic, and Asian students have generally, but not always, reported more cross-race friends than White students (Clark & Ayers, 1988; Davey, 1983; Denscombe, Szulc, Patrick, & Wood, 1986; Hallinan & Teixeira, 1987; Howes & Wu, 1990). Overall, Blacks nominated more classmates as friends and therefore made more unreciprocated nominations; they also tended to spend more time in and out of school with their friends.
Living in the same neighborhood as one’s cross-race school friends made an important difference to Black children by increasing contact and closeness; those in integrated neigh- borhoods also reported having many cross-race friends outside school (DuBois & Hirsch, 1990). Responses of Black adults to a national U.S. survey revealed that 57% had had at least one White friend in their youth, and those who had such a friend were more likely to have trusting attitudes toward Whites and social/work relations with Whites (Ellison
& Powers, 1994).
How are we to account for the decline in cross-race friendships during pre- and early adolescence when there is no evidence for increasing prejudice at this age? There is also little evidence that cross-race friendships lack an important quality of same-race friend- ships (Aboud & Mendelson, 1999). Hallinan and Kubitschek (1990) have examined the possibility that cross-race triads of friends are fragile and may dissolve if the three do not feel equally positive toward each other. A second explanation focuses on the way pread-
olescents prepare to date (Schofield, 1982). Social factors related to peer approval need to be examined more closely to determine how they contribute to self-segregation in group settings, and extend to dyadic friend relations. Because of the obvious benefits to social and work relations, research is currently focusing on conditions that improve the number, stability, and quality of cross-race friendships, with a view to reducing the self- segregation that takes place in group and dyadic settings.