The Use of Multicultural Curricula and Materials to Counter Racism in Children

Journal of Social Issues, Winter, 1999 by Rebecca S. Bigler

Rebecca S. Bigler [*]

Intervention programs designed to reduce racial stereotyping and prejudice among children using multicultural curricula and materials are reviewed. Specifically, the theoretical assumptions that have guided the development of multicultural programs for countering racism among children and the empirical limitations that characterize extant intervention studies are outlined. The failure to design more effective programs is attributed to a lack of breadth and sophistication in the theoretical models and empirical research on which intervention strategies have been based. Specific recommendations for expanding and evaluating the impact of multicultural curricula and materials are presented.

The role that racial and ethnic minorities play in the United States has changed dramatically during the last 4 decades. The percentage of African Americans and other minority group members who hold high status and well-paying jobs, are college educated, and live in integrated neighborhoods has increased in the last 4 decades. It is also clear that racial prejudice and discrimination on the part of European Americans have lessened and changed from more virulent to more subtle forms (e.g., Davis & Smith, 1991; Devine & Elliot, 1995; Gaertner & Dovidio, 1986; McConahay, 1986; Sears, 1988).

Given the assumption that racism is learned, we would expect that children's racial attitudes would mirror these societal-level changes. Consistent with this suggestion, there is some evidence for a historical trend in children's racial attitudes, with children becoming less biased over the last 40 years (Bolling, 1974; Hraba & Grant, 1970). There are several important caveats to this suggestion, however. First, it is African American, rather than European American, children who have made substantial shifts away from "pro-White" responding on racial attitude measures. Though many young African American children continue to show high levels of pro-White attitudes, the vast majority of older African American children show nonbiased or pro-African American attitudes (Aboud, 1988; M. B. Spencer & Markstrom-Adams, 1990). In contrast, many studies indicate that high percentages of European American children continue to endorse pro--European American and anti--African American beliefs (e.g., Bigler & Liben, 1993; Clark, Hocevar, & Dembo, 1980; Doyle & Aboud, 1995; Johnson, 1992; Katz & Kofkin, 1997).

In addition, whereas few European American adults endorse items from traditional or overt scales of prejudice (as opposed to subtle or "modern" scales) in a racist manner (e.g., Devine & Elliot, 1995), many European American children continue to do so. For example, Bigler and Liben (1993) asked 75 European American elementary school children to attribute positive and negative traits to only White people, only Black people, or both White and Black people. We found that over half of the children stated that "only Black people" could be bad, cruel, dirty, mean, naughty, selfish, stupid, and ugly. This level of bias is striking, especially given the paucity of adults who respond in a similar manner, and indicates the continued need for intervention programs designed to reduce racial stereotyping and prejudice among children.

Within the psychological literature, the emphasis of racial attitude research has been on descriptive and theoretical accounts of its origins. Far less attention has been paid to intervention. In contrast, within the fields of education, counseling psychology, educational psychology, and school psychology, a major thrust of research has been on intervention. Once research in these disciplines is added to that of psychology, the corpus of relevant work expands dramatically. Across these disciplines, literally hundreds of articles are published each year describing the problem of racism and how to reduce racial bias among children. One of the intervention strategies most commonly called for is the use of multicultural curricula and materials for lessons that highlight the contributions of different racial, ethnic, religious, and other social groups. Materials typically include stories, textbooks, music, art, and audiovisual materials (e.g., Baker, 1994; Beaty, 1997; Cortes, 1996; Gimmestad & de Chiara, 1982; L eslie, Leslie, & Penfield, 1972; Litcher & Johnson, 1969; Lucero, 1997; Nelson-Barber & Harrison, 1996; Nicolai-Mays & Oulahan, 1991; Norton, 1990; Olson & Wilczenski, 1995; Powell-Hopson, 1985; Rasinski & Padak, 1990; Spann, 1994; Walker-Dalhouse, 1992). Obviously, the literature on multicultural curricula is too broad to be discussed in detail here. The primary purpose of this article is to give an illustrative, rather than exhaustive, review of the effectiveness of interventions that employ multicultural curriculum programs and materials to reduce racism among children.

I begin the article with a discussion of the typical content and methodology of intervention studies and a review of the types of limitations that characterize empirical data from previous intervention studies. Next, I discuss several of the theoretical assumptions that have guided research on countering racism among children. I will argue that the failure to design more effective interventions is due, in large part, to the lack of breadth and sophistication in the theoretical and empirical frameworks on which intervention strategies have been based. Finally, I make several specific suggestions for expanding and evaluating curricula and materials.