In today's paper, there are more revelations about the Metropolitan Police Officers and some young black people that were abused, physically and verbally. As an ex-Psychology teacher (more about this at a later date) let's see what psychology has to say about this.
The study that could shed some light on this situation is Sherif's "Robber's Cave" study. In this study they 'took over' a boys summer camp in America. They arranged one group of boys to get better things than the other group. For example, at a 'party' one group of boys arrived earlier than the other and ate all the nicest sandwiches, etc. leaving the dried up, curled up sandwiches and the flat Coke for the other boys. Not surprisingly, when the boys' attitudes were investigated one group of boys said that they did not "like" the boys in the other group. Interestingly, Sherif and his team attempted to undo the damage that they had done to the boys' attitudes. They achieved this by arranging mis-haps that could only be undone if all of the boys worked together. For example, they arranged for the van carrying all of the boys to break down in a remote situation, and the only way to get to safety was if all the boys pushed the van, which they did. Following several events of this type, the team again investigated the boys' attitude towards the other group, and they found that they "weren't that bad after all."
This is not the only study in this area, you can investigate "Brown Eyes, Blue Eyes" on YouTube, or do an internet search for "Henri Tajfel's" study.
Sherif's study is interesting as it shows how discrimination may occur. One group in society receives preferential treatment in comparison to another group, or at least there is a perception of preferential treatment. It can be 'treated' by making sure that both group share a view that 'we are all in this together' (where have I heard that before?). You can draw your own conclusions about how this is reflected in how groups in society are treated.
Good post. I have always shown groups of kids brown eyes, blue eyes and it led to excellent discussions. Perhaps racism may be linked to our sense of self esteem too. Would we need to belittle another group if we didn't need to make ourselves feel better or more secure and in control? A concentration on building emotional literacy in general, could be a good start. If we had kids who were used to examining their own attitudes and moral framework then it may help reduce all problems of inequality. Not just racism.
ReplyDeleteSelf-esteem and discrimination was investigated by Henri Tajfel. His Social Identity Theory explains some of our group behaviour on how it affects our self-esteem. Powerful and successful groups attract more followers, members want to improve their self-esteem by associating with this power and success. How many people support football teams is related to how successful they are. Prawn Cocktail sandwiches and Old Trafford make sense according to this theory.
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