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Improving Children's Attitudes Toward Refugees: An Evaluation of a School‐Based Multicultural Curriculum and an Anti‐Racist Intervention 1
Author(s) -
Turner Rhian N.,
Brown Rupert
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
journal of applied social psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.822
H-Index - 111
eISSN - 1559-1816
pISSN - 0021-9029
DOI - 10.1111/j.1559-1816.2008.00349.x
Subject(s) - refugee , psychology , friendship , curriculum , acculturation , empathy , test (biology) , multiculturalism , intervention (counseling) , social psychology , medical education , clinical psychology , ethnic group , developmental psychology , pedagogy , medicine , sociology , political science , paleontology , psychiatry , law , biology , anthropology
We evaluated the impact of the Friendship Project, a program designed to improve elementary school children's attitudes toward refugees. Participants either received 4 weekly lessons based on the program, or they received no lessons. All participants completed attitude measures before and after implementation of the program. Half completed the post‐test 1 week after completion of the program, while the other half completed the post‐test 7 weeks after its completion. The program led to more positive attitudes toward refugees in the short term, but not in the long term. Moreover, although it did not increase empathy, the program increased the proportion of participants who preferred an acculturation strategy of integration and reduced the number of participants who had conflictual acculturative fit.