Jocelyn Dautel
"Development of children’s early reasoning about Catholic and Protestant group members in Northern Ireland"
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Abstract
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As a result of the peace process, much of the ethnic and religious violence in Northern Ireland has subsided. However, most Northern Irish children still attend segregated schools, live in segregated neighborhoods, and participate in aggressive acts on the borders of their respective communities. Thus, Northern Ireland presents a unique opportunity to study the development of ethnic awareness as the society is transitioning toward more peaceful times, but children’s biases still persist. The situation in Northern Ireland also contrasts with research in the United States on gender and racial categories arguing that beliefs about group membership develop from visual observation of surface features, such as skin color. Northern Irish children generally look and sound very similar, yet the deep divide persists. Empirical methods in developmental psychology provide evidence that children have biases based on deeper inferences about social categorization. The aim of this research is to use an experimental approach to explore children’s early cognitive biases toward ethnic and religious groups in a society where visual category markers are not available. Further, I will investigate how these biases contribute to negative stereotypes and moral judgments, and the extent to which these are resistant to change. This research will be conducted in Belfast with three populations of children whose experience of other groups differs dramatically: those who attend Protestant, Catholic, and Integrated schools. As a segregated society that is working towards peace, Belfast provides the perfect model for studying children’s developing biases that can generalize to conflicted communities around the world.
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