Developing a More Inclusive Social Identity: An Elementary School Intervention

Transcription

1 Journal of Social Issues, Vol. 60, No. 1, 2004, pp Developing a More Inclusive Social Identity: An Elementary School Intervention Melissa A. Houlette, Samuel L. Gaertner, Kelly M. Johnson, Brenda S. Banker, and Blake M. Riek University of Delaware John F. Dovidio Colgate University School integration, stimulated by the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision, has influenced students social and educational experiences. Drawing on practice and theory, we focus on strategies for improving intergroup relations. In a series of sessions over four-weeks, 830 first and second grade children participated in Green Circle program activities designed to widen their circles of inclusion to include people who are different from themselves. Although the intervention did not influence children s biases in sharing or how happy they would be playing with others who were different from themselves based on race, sex, and weight, it did lead them to be more inclusive in selecting their most preferred playmate. Implications for friendship development and improvement in intergroup attitudes are considered. He drew a circle that shut me out- Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout. But love and I had the wit to win- We drew a circle that took him in. Edwin Markham (1936, p. 67) Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Samuel L. Gaertner, Department of Psychology, University of Delaware, Newark, DE [ gaertner@udel.edu]. This research was supported by NIMH Grant MH to Samuel L. Gaertner and John F. Dovidio and by a Fellowship to the Institute For Advanced Study from the University of Delaware to Samuel L. Gaertner. We gratefully acknowledge the contributions of Kathie Stamm, and the members of the NCCJ Green Circle staff who helped make this research possible including: Beth Benson, Mary Browne, Mary Ann Dilworth, Lora Engleheart, and Evelyn Lobel. 35 C 2004 The Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues

2 36 Houlette, Gaertner, Johnson, Banker, Riek, and Dovidio In 1954, the Brown v. Board of Education decision, which centered on school desegregation, had a profound impact on the nature of education in America and on the quality of education for Black Americans, as well as for other minority groups (Stephan, 1978; see Zirkel and Cantor, this issue). The social impact of the decision, however, was as profound as its educational influence. The decision occurred at a time when residential segregation was prevalent and legal, and when in many places in the United States, by custom and by law, Blacks were required to eat in different places than Whites, drink from different water fountains, and sit only in the back of buses (Williams, 1964). The school desegregation required by the Brown v. Board of Education decision brought Blacks and Whites together in new ways socially as well as academically (Cook, 1984). This social and personal contact held enormous potential for changing the fundamental relationship between Blacks and Whites in America. In this article, we explore this aspect of the legacy of the landmark decision. Whereas the historic 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision halted lawful racial segregation in public schools in the United States, it could not directly eliminate racial separation and racial preferences in students hearts. Indeed, as Allport (1954) recognized, intergroup contact per se is necessary but not sufficient to reduce racial prejudice (see Gaines, this issue). In celebration of the 50th anniversary of the historic Brown decision, this article explores what can happen when schoolchildren are asked, as in Markham s poem, to draw their circle of social inclusion wider to take in others who have previously been excluded. This article explores how the nature and structure of intergroup orientations can influence relations with members of other groups in an integrated elementary school setting. Although our work does not evaluate educational outcomes directly, it does consider personal and social factors, self-esteem, and intergroup relations, that are not only important in their own right, but also contribute significantly to a positive educational environment and to personal achievement (Schofield & Eurich-Fulcer, 2001; Stephan, 1991; Twemlow et al., 2001). In addition, our focus is on elementary school children. This period of life is a critical one for the development of intergroup orientations. Racial stereotypes and prejudices emerge during the early elementary school period (Aboud, 1988; Hirschfeld, 1995), and, as they grow older, children rely more frequently and strongly on racial information in forming impressions and in making social judgments (Killen & Stangor, 2001). Moreover, children do not learn stereotypes and prejudice solely from parents; the influence of other children and other adults outside the home is significant (Aboud & Amato, 2001; see also Tatum, this issue). The school environment thus constitutes a salient and important social world for children (Killen, McGlothlin, & Lee-Kim, in press). Interventions at this point can, thus, have profound influence on children s intergroup relations later in life (see Gurin, Nagda, & Lopez, this issue and Nagda, Kim, & Truelove, this issue for recent college-level interventions).

3 An Elementary School Intervention 37 Does casting wider circles increase attraction and harmony among those who are included? We examine the consequences of this metaphor through an assessment of an elementary school intervention program, Green Circle, that aims to teach children to be more inclusive in terms of bringing those who differ from themselves literally into their circle of caring and sharing. The opportunity to collaborate with the Green Circle organization has been timely and fortunate for us because the core of the program is theoretically complementary to the Common Ingroup Identity Model (Gaertner & Dovidio, 2000; Gaertner, Dovidio, Anastasio, Bachman, & Rust, 1993) that has been guiding our work on reducing prejudice and discrimination for several years. Before introducing the Green Circle school intervention project, we, first, review some evidence regarding the potential of a common ingroup identity to reduce bias and discrimination across a variety of intergroup settings by transforming the boundaries of inclusion. The Common Ingroup Identity Model Intergroup inclusion and exclusion have critical implications for one s attitudes toward others (see Zirkel, this issue). Upon social categorization, people often favor ingroup members ( we ) over outgroup members ( they ) in terms of evaluations, attributions, material resources, helping, and social support (Gaertner & Dovidio, 2000). Thus, changing that nature of intergroup inclusion and exclusion can have important consequences for intergroup relations. Allport s (1954) conception of circles of inclusion represents the idea that a person s potential ingroups can vary hierarchically in inclusiveness, for example, from one s family to one s neighborhood, to one s city, to one s nation, to one s race, to all of humankind. Allport recognized the potential value of shifting the level of category inclusiveness from race to humankind. He wrote, The clash between the idea of race and of One World (the two outermost circles) is shaping into an issue that may well be the most decisive in human history: The important question is, Can a loyalty to [hu]mankind be fashioned before interracial warfare breaks out? (Allport, 1954, p. 44). The Common Ingroup Identity Model (Gaertner & Dovidio, 2000; Gaertner et al., 1993), derived from the social categorization approach (Allport, 1954; Tajfel, 1969), proposes that factors that induce members of two groups to conceive of themselves as members of a common, more inclusive ingroup, reduce intergroup bias by enabling cognitive and motivational processes that contribute to pro-ingroup biases to be redirected to include former outgroup members (Gaertner, Mann, Murrell & Dovidio, 1989). Formation of a common identity does not necessarily require groups to forsake their ethnic identities. It is possible for members to conceive of themselves as holding a dual identity in which both subgroup and superordinate groups are salient simultaneously.

4 38 Houlette, Gaertner, Johnson, Banker, Riek, and Dovidio In one test of the Common Ingroup Identity hypothesis, we conducted an experiment that brought 2 three-person laboratory groups together under conditions designed to vary independently: (a) the members representations of the aggregate as one group or two groups through manipulation of the contact situation and (b) the presence or absence of intergroup cooperative interaction (Gaertner, Mann, Dovidio, Murrell, & Pomare, 1990). The interventions, designed to emphasize common group membership through structural changes in the contact situation (e.g., integrated vs. segregated seating; a new group name for all six participants vs. the original group names, the same or different colored T-shirts for both groups) and to encourage cooperative interaction (joint evaluation and reward vs. independent outcomes), reduced intergroup bias. Moreover, they did so through the same mechanism. Contextual features emphasizing common groupness and cooperation increased one-group representations (and reduced separate-group representations), which in turn related to more favorable attitudes toward original outgroup members and to lower levels of bias. Consistent with the Common Ingroup Identity Model more inclusive, one-group representations mediated the relationship between the interventions and the reduction of bias. Two additional studies reported by Nier, Gaertner, Dovidio, Banker, and Ward (2001) illustrate the effectiveness of this approach for addressing racial biases. One study (Nier et al., 2001, Study 1) was a laboratory experiment in which White college students in a session with a Black or White confederate were induced to perceive themselves either as separate individuals participating at the same time or as members of the same laboratory team. The participants evaluated their Black partners significantly more favorably when they were teammates than when they were just individuals without common group connection. In contrast, the evaluations of the White partner were virtually equivalent in the team and individual conditions. Thus, inducing a common ingroup identity was particularly effective at producing positive responses toward Blacks. The second study (Nier et al., 2001, Study 2) was a field experiment conducted at the University of Delaware football stadium prior to a game against the university s rival team. By selecting fans wearing clothing that identified their university affiliation, we systematically varied whether fans and our Black and White interviewers had common or different university identities in a context in which we expected university identities to be particularly salient. Paralleling the results for evaluations in the previous study and supportive of the predictions, White fans were significantly more cooperative with a Black interviewer when they shared a superordinate university identity than when they did not (60% vs. 38%). For White interviewers, with whom they already shared racial group membership, the effect was much less pronounced (43% vs. 40%) as in Study 1. Thus, in field and laboratory settings, racial outgroup members were accorded especially positive reactions when they shared common ingroup identity with

5 An Elementary School Intervention 39 White participants relative to a context that did not emphasize their common group membership. In a series of studies with a different methodological approach, we utilized survey techniques under more naturalistic circumstances to examine the impact of common group identity across a variety different intergroup settings. These studies offer converging support for the hypothesis that the features specified by the Contact Hypothesis (e.g., intergroup cooperation, equal status, opportunities for self-revealing interactions, egalitarian norms; Allport, 1954; Williams, 1947; see also Dovidio, Gaertner, & Kawakami, in press) reduce intergroup bias, in part, because they transform members representations of the memberships from separate groups to a single, more inclusive group. Participants in these studies included students attending a multi-ethnic high school (Gaertner, Rust, Dovidio, Bachman, & Anastasio, 1996), banking executives who had experienced a corporate merger involving a wide variety of banks across the United States (Bachman, 1993), and college students from blended families whose households are composed of two formerly separate families trying to unite into one (Banker & Gaertner, 1998). Consistent with the role of an inclusive group representation that is hypothesized in the Common Ingroup Identity Model, across all three studies: (a) conditions of intergroup contact that were perceived as more favorable predicted lower levels of intergroup bias, (b) more favorable conditions of contact predicted more inclusive (one group) and less exclusive (different groups) representations; and (c) more inclusive representations mediated lower levels of intergroup bias and conflict (see Gaertner, Dovidio, Nier, Ward, & Banker, 1999). Recently, a ninemonth longitudinal study of stepfamilies found evidence supportive of the direction of causality between the constructs proposed by our model across time (Banker, 2002). Thus, across a variety of intergroup settings and methodological approaches we have found reasonably strong and consistent support for the Common Ingroup Identity Model. In the study involving an elementary school intervention that we feature in this article, we examine what happens when a school-based intervention asks children to consider drawing wider circles of inclusion. We investigate responses not only associated with racial group membership, which was of course the focus of the Brown v. Board of Education case, but also related to other prevalent types of bias among elementary school children those based on sex and weight. Would these children who participated in the Green Circle program that attempted to widen their circle of inclusion develop more favorable cross-group attitudes? By including weight and gender variables in addition to race, in the current article, we are able to compare the magnitude of children s racial bias with other dimensions on which bias may occur and assess the importance of race as a factor in children s circles of inclusion.

6 40 Houlette, Gaertner, Johnson, Banker, Riek, and Dovidio The Green Circle Program A number of years ago we became aware of an elementary school-based intervention program, which is now run by the National Conference for Community and Justice of Northern Delaware, that theoretically complements our Common Ingroup Identity Model. The guiding assumption of Green Circle is that helping children bring people from different groups conceptually into their own circle of caring and sharing fosters appreciation of their common humanity as well as respect for their differences (Green Circle Program, n.d.). Paralleling the Common Ingroup Identity Model and Allport s (1954) hope for racial harmony, Green Circle assumes that an appreciation of common humanity will increase children s positive attitudes toward people who would otherwise remain outside of their circle of inclusion. The goal of Green Circle is to help children understand that their circles of caring can expand to include people who are different than themselves (e.g., in terms of race, ethnicity, sex, and body size) but who share the same human feelings. The content of the program is designed to promote intergroup awareness, understanding, and cooperation while enhancing self-esteem. A Green Circle facilitator visits each class for about forty minutes per session, three or four times (depending upon the school district) over a four-week period. During the sessions, children are shown a small green circle on a felt board and told, Whenever you see the green circle, you should think about your world of people; the people who you care about and the people who care about you. A stick figure is added to the circle and the students are told that the figure represents themselves. The facilitator explains that each person has a big job of deciding who is going to be in your circle, how to treat people, and how big your circle will grow. At this point, the facilitator shows additional stick figures placed outside the circle. The program continues with the following script: Now let s talk about some of the people you may have included in your circle. These figures represent your family...those who live with you and those who live in other places. How many of you have brothers? Sisters? How many of you live with your Grandmother? Grandfather? How many of you have a stepmother? Stepfather? Stepsisters or stepbrothers? Look! What has happened to your circle? It s too small. It needs to grow. Yes, your circle grows when you care about people. Here you are with your family. Removing the smaller green circle, the facilitator replaces it with one large enough to include the self and all of the family members. Once students understand how their circle can grow, the facilitator asks participants to think of a time when they felt outside the circle. They are asked to recall how it feels to be left out. Participants typically respond that they feel sad, lonely, and sometimes mad when they are left out of others circles. The facilitator then continues, Since you know how it feels to be outside the circle, perhaps you can understand how other people feel when they are outside of the circle. The

7 An Elementary School Intervention 41 facilitator then discusses ways that people are different that may cause them to feel left out of the circle. For each of the differences he or she discusses, the facilitator adds a stick figure to the felt board (but outside of the circle) that represents a person with the characteristic she is discussing. The facilitator explains: One way people are different is their size and shape. Have you ever felt outside the circle because of your size or shape? Have you ever been called a name because of your size or shape (e.g., fatso)? Each of us has a skin color that is different and unique. Have you ever been treated differently because your skin color is different? Some of us are girls and some of us are boys. Have you ever been told you can t do something because you re a girl...or aboy? Again, the facilitator points out that the circle of caring and sharing needs to grow to include others, just at it did to include family members. The facilitator removes the green circle on the felt board that was large enough to fit oneself and family inside, but not large enough to include the other people who are large and small, male and female, and black and white. This green circle is replaced with an even larger one that can include all of the figures. Referring to Allport s (1954) outer-most circle of inclusion of humankind, the facilitator points out that, All of us belong to one family the human family. An Evaluation and Extension of Green Circle The collaboration between our group of university researchers and the facilitators of the Green Circle program was believed to be potentially mutually beneficial. This collaboration provides an applied opportunity to test the general principles of the Common Ingroup Identity Model and also offers the Green Circle program an evaluation of their intervention s effectiveness. Within the Green Circle program, common humanity represents the superordinate ingroup. Moreover, this initial evaluation could serve as a baseline for gauging the effectiveness of subsequent modifications to the program. In addition to evaluating the usual version of the Green Circle program, our collaboration allowed us to develop a Group Enhanced version of the program that borrowed strategies from our laboratory to increase the children s perception of their class as a group during the presentation of the program. We assumed that enhancing children s perceptions of the different groups of students (e.g., Blacks and Whites, boys and girls) as members of the same inclusive classroom group during the presentation of the program would increase the meaningfulness of the lesson and thereby enhance the program s effectiveness. While the content of the Green Circle lesson remained constant, structural features were added to the Regular Green Circle program to implement the Group Enhanced version. A circle made out of green plastic barrier tape was placed around the perimeter of the room that encompassed all of the children. Also, the children were given a vest with a green circle on it to wear during the session

8 42 Houlette, Gaertner, Johnson, Banker, Riek, and Dovidio that emphasized their common classroom identity. Also, a vest, containing the names of all of the children in the classroom within a green circle, to further underscore that the children were all members of the classroom group was posted in the front of the room. To create interdependence among members of the class, the facilitator told the children that if, at the end of the program, most of the vests were useable, everyone in the class could keep one as a gift. The vests were virtually indestructible and all students in the Group Enhanced condition were invited to keep their vests at the last session. To determine whether these features influenced children s perceptions of their class as a group as intended, a manipulation check was developed that assessed each child s perception of the extent to which their class felt like a team. Our assessment procedure utilized primarily a pre-test, posttest design involving classes that received the Regular (n = 35 classes) and Group Enhanced (n = 17 classes) versions of the program (assigned randomly), as well as a Control condition (n = 9 classes) involving classes scheduled to receive the program later in the school year. On the basis of the goals of the Green Circle program and the principles of the Common Ingroup Identity Model, we expected that children receiving the program would be more inclusive of others who are different than themselves in playing and sharing following the implementation of the program relative to pretest levels. Also, based on additional assumptions of Green Circle, the program was expected to increase children s self-esteem, which in turn would mediate the program s effects on the positive changes in the inclusiveness of their preferences for playing and sharing. We next provide more details about the procedure. Method The sample for which we have both pre-test and post-test data was composed of 830 first (n = 354) and second (n = 476) grade, male (n = 433) and female (n = 396) children. The sample roughly reflected the ethnic composition of the county. The participants were 60% White, 30% Black, 6% Hispanic, 2.5% Asian and 0.5% other, with classroom composition fairly well integrated, averaging 44% minority. This sample represented 85% of the potential participants (i.e., those whose parents or guardians allowed their children to participate in the evaluation). The pre-test was administered approximately one week prior to the first intervention session and the post-test was administered approximately one week following the last intervention session. In the Control condition, the children also completed the measures twice using a time frame similar to those who received the intervention, that is, about six weeks apart. A White woman who had experience working with children of this age but who was not associated with the intervention administered pre-tests and post-tests to students as a group. During the evaluation sessions, our staff (the evaluator plus two assistants) was introduced to the children as members of the University of Delaware to

9 An Elementary School Intervention 43 dissociate the evaluation from the Green Circle program as much as possible. Each child was given a test booklet, prepared with the teacher s assistance, that identified the child s ethnicity, sex, and body size (i.e., average weight or very much overweight) plus an identifying code number to enable us to match pre-test and post-test booklets for each child. The evaluator read aloud to the class each question along with the response alternatives using a standardized script. Measures All measures were developed in collaboration with the Green Circle staff to ensure that they agreed that our measures reflected the goals of the program. Specifically, we assessed, at the pre-test and post-test, how inclusive children were toward similar and dissimilar others in several ways. These measures included children s self-reported preferences for playing and sharing with similar and different others and teachers ratings of actual behaviors among the children in the class before and after Green Circle. Feelings faces. To assess play preferences, participants were given practice using each of five different feelings faces that included a very sad face containing a very large frown (scored as 1), a little sad face with a small frown (scored as 2), a not sad or happy face with a straight line for the mouth (scored as 3), a little happy face with a slight smile (scored as 4), and a very happy face with a large have a nice day smile (scored as 5). After practicing with this scale, participants were asked to choose which of the five feelings faces showed how they would feel about playing with each of eight different children depicted in specially commissioned, professional color-pencil drawings. These eight drawings systematically varied whether the child depicted was a boy or girl, Black or White, and average weight or very much overweight. Within these drawings, the children s facial expression, posture, and clothing style were kept constant along with the background. Each drawing was numbered and the participants were asked, also, to indicate with which child pictured would they most like to play. The eight drawings were presented in two different orders, and preliminary analyses revealed that presentation order had no systematic effects on the results. Also, we recorded the race, sex and body size of each participant so we could calculate each child s play preferences for the children depicted in the drawings who were the same and different than themselves on each of these three dimensions. Because our picture set contained only Black and White children (not those of Asian or Hispanic children), we included the responses of only the Black and White participants. When examining similarity and dissimilarity regarding body type (i.e., average or very much overweight), the analyses reported in this article included only average weight children because initial analyses revealed only a small sample of overweight children (n = 45, 5% of the sample).

10 44 Houlette, Gaertner, Johnson, Banker, Riek, and Dovidio First play choice. Following the feelings faces measure, all of the eight pictures were displayed together and the children were asked, Which of these eight children would you most like to play with? Each drawing was numbered and the children were instructed to circle the number (1 8) that appeared in their response booklets that matched the number of the child with whom they most wanted to play. As with the first measure, we included only Black and White average-weight children to permit us to calculate the number of attributes that participants had in common with their first play choice. Because the children in the pictures varied in race, gender, and body type, the participants scores could range from 0 to 3, corresponding to the number of characteristics in common with their most preferred playmate. Sharing. Sharing with similar and different others was assessed by asking children to indicate, on a computer-generated drawing showing six pieces of Dubble Bubble bubble gum and the word none, how many pieces of their bubble gum (0 6) they would give to each of the eight children depicted in the same drawings shown earlier. The children were instructed to circle the number of pieces of gum that they wanted to give each child or the word none. They could give each child a maximum of six pieces. Teachers reports. To obtain a more behavioral measure of how children actually acted towards others in class, teachers were asked to report on their class behavior. Teachers indicated how many children in the class shared, teased, played with, and physically fought with children similar to and different from themselves on the dimensions of race, sex, and weight, and to what extent (1 = not at all; 7 = very much) the children engaged in each of these behaviors. These measures were administered just before and just after the Green Circle program. Self-esteem. Self-esteem was assessed by asking participants to use the five feelings faces drawings to indicate how they felt about themselves as a person, about the way they look, and about the way they do things. These items were adapted from Harter s (1982) perceived competence scale for children. Manipulation check. We included a manipulation check to determine whether the structural changes made in the Group Enhanced version of the Green Circle program had the intended effect. In the Regular and Group Enhanced conditions, the program facilitator administered the manipulation check on the last day of the Green Circle program. In the Control condition this item was administered as the final item in the evaluation booklets during the post-test evaluation. This item asked participants to indicate how much their class feels like a team by using a 5-point scale, ranging from very little to a whole lot, using words and circles drawn with increasing darkness to denote their meaning.

11 An Elementary School Intervention 45 Results To control for interdependence among participants in the same classroom, we aggregated the data and used the classroom as the unit of analysis. Contrary to our intentions, there were no significant differences on the manipulation check measure in the extent to which participants indicated that their class feels like a team across the different conditions: Regular: M = 4.40; Group Enhanced: M = 4.50; Control: M = 4.53, F(2, 41) =.37, p =.70 or between just the Group Enhanced and Regular conditions, F(1, 30) =.46, p =.50. Nevertheless, because of the theoretical issues that guided this work, we normally report the results of Regular and Group Enhanced conditions separately. Analytic approach. If Green Circle had positive effects on children s play preferences as proposed, then we would expect that children who participated in the Regular and Group Enhanced conditions would become more inclusive in their play preferences, from pre-test to post-test, than would those in the Control condition. The analyses that we report in this article are typically 3 (condition: Regular, Group Enhanced, Control) 2 (time: pre-test, post-test) analyses. Support for our hypothesis that Regular and Group Enhanced would improve intergroup relations, compared to the Control condition, would be reflected in two-way interactions with the appropriate pattern of means. We focus our attention on only those statistically significant effects that explain greater than 1% of the variance (i.e., when η 2 >.010). Feelings Faces. None of our analyses of children s expressions of how sad (1) to happy (5) they would feel playing with each of the eight children depicted in our drawings (using the feelings faces measure) revealed evidence supporting the expectation that Green Circle would increase the inclusiveness of children s play preferences in terms of race, gender, or ethnicity (all were p>.05). One possible explanation for our lack of support for our hypotheses is that our feelings faces measure was not sufficiently sensitive for assessing children s preferences. However, we call attention to other effects demonstrating that the measure was sensitive to preferences that we could have anticipated among children this age. The difference in happiness about playing with similar rather than dissimilar children (i.e., bias) increases from race (M =.12), to sex (M =.51), to body type (M = 1.09), F(2, 59) =, p<.001, η 2 =.914. Also, a series of t-tests reveal that bias on each dimension (i.e., race, sex, body type) is significantly different from zero (all were p<.05). Perhaps, however, the feelings faces scale that required children to select among 5 alternative responses was too complicated for children this age to be completely sensitive to subtle changes in their preferences. Indeed, the second

12 46 Houlette, Gaertner, Johnson, Banker, Riek, and Dovidio measure that required children to select their single, most favorite playmate, yielded more encouraging results. First play choice. If the inclusiveness of children s choice for their most preferred playmate increases in the Green Circle program, then the number of characteristics in common with their first play choice would be expected to decrease over time relative to the responses of participants in the Control condition. Thus, the crucial effect for this measure involves a condition x time interaction. The condition x time interaction effect was obtained, F(2, 58) = 4.74, p<.012, η 2 =.140. Supportive of the potential efficacy of the intervention program, for those in the Regular condition there was a small, but significant, decrease from pre-test to post-test in the number of characteristics that participants had in common with their first play choice (M = 2.46 vs. M = 2.38), F(1, 34) = 5.53, p<.025, η 2 = 0.14, and a smaller, nonsignificant decrease for participants who received the Group Enhanced version of the program (M = 2.42 vs. M = 2.39), F(1, 16) =.70, p>.05, η 2 =.042. In contrast, participants in the Control condition selected children more like themselves over time (M = 2.22 vs. M = 2.44) although this effect was not statistically significant, F(1, 8) = 1.73, p>.05, η 2 =.178. This pattern of findings indicates that children became more willing to include others who were different than themselves as their most preferred playmate as a result of the Green Circle program, a promising finding. What dimensions of difference (i.e., race, sex, or body type) were most involved in this change of ratings of the most preferred playmate as a function of participation in the Green Circle program? Although the findings are complicated, it is clear from our exploratory analyses that there were some changes involving race and sex over time, whereas body type was strongly resistant to change. When we looked at the race, sex, and body type separately for the first play choice, the dependent measure for each student becomes dichotomous (yes, no), which is inappropriate for the analysis of variance. However, when the class is the unit of analysis (our primary analysis strategy), the dependent measure is a continuous variable the percentage of students (which could vary from 0% to 100%) in each class that selected a same race, same sex, or same body-type. For each of the classes (N = 61), we calculated the percentage of participants (i.e., only Black and White, average-weight) in each class that selected a child of the same race, or same sex, or same body-type as themselves as their first-play choice each time. Separate analyses revealed that there were significant condition x time interaction effects for the percentage of children in each class selecting a same race, F(2, 58) = 3.66, p<.05, η 2 =.112, and same sex, F(2, 58) = 4.15, p<.05, η 2 =.125, child as their first play choice. In the Regular Green Circle condition, there was a small but significant decrease over time in the percentage of participants choosing a child of the same race as themselves as their first play choice, (M = 72% vs. M = 67%), t(34) = 2.24, p =.03, η 2 =.129, an effect that was

13 An Elementary School Intervention 47 not observed in either the Group Enhanced or Control conditions. In terms of the preference for same-sex children, in an analysis that collapsed across the Regular and Group Enhanced versions of the program, there was a marginally significant decrease over time in the percentage of participants choosing a child of the same sex as themselves as their first play choice (M = 84% vs. M = 80%), t(51) = 1.87, p =.067, η 2 =.064. The direction of this change, however, was not evident in the Control condition. Lastly, our analyses involving body type did not reveal a condition x time interaction, F(2, 58) = 0.16, p =.69, and over 96% of the children in each class selected an average weight child as their first play choice during each testing session. Apparently, the characteristic of being overweight, which received the largest degree of bias on the feelings faces measure and the highest degree of exclusion from participants consideration of their favorite playmate, is also the characteristic that was least susceptible to benefit from the Green Circle program. Sharing behavior. None of our analyses involving children s sharing of their six pieces of bubble gum with each of the eight children depicted in our drawings revealed the crucial condition x similarity x time interaction, nor were there any statistically significant higher-order interactions involving all of these factors. Relationship between bias in playing and sharing. Correlational analyses revealed that, in general, the degree of bias in play preferences and sharing correlated reliably within and across time in each dimension (i.e., race, sex, and body type) but not across dimensions. For example, participants gender bias in playing during the pre-test related to their degree of gender bias in sharing during the pre-test, r(59) =.632, p<.001, and their gender bias in sharing at post-test, r(59) =.565, p<.001. Nevertheless, bias in playing on one dimension (e.g., race, sex, or body type) was not generally related to bias in playing or sharing on any other dimension, within or across time. Thus, preference for playing with a same-race child on the pre-test did not relate to preferences for playing with same-sex child during the pre-test, r(59) =.011, p>.05, or at the post-test, r(59) =.063, p>.05, nor did it relate to preference for sharing with a same-sex child during the pre-test, r(59) =.103, p>.05, or post-test, r(59) =.211, p>.05. These findings suggest that children s biases in playing preference on a particular dimension was not likely a random, accidental event because this same bias was revealed, also, in the domain of sharing, within and across time. Also, the results suggest that children s biases tend to be localized with regard to a particular dimension and do not seem to reflect a prejudiced personality, which was confirmed by repeating the correlations and using the student as the level of analysis, yielding the same pattern of findings. Lastly, these findings that bias in one domain is not informative of bias in others replicate those of Powlishta, Serbin, Doyle, and White (1994) and provide further reason to be confident in the utility of our measures.

14 48 Houlette, Gaertner, Johnson, Banker, Riek, and Dovidio Participants self-esteem. None of our analyses involving children s selfesteem revealed any effects of the Green Circle program. Specifically, there were no condition x time interaction effects involving the measures singly or in concert. Thus, the Green Circle program did not have an effect on how participants felt about themselves as a person, the way they do things, or the way they look. Overall, participants had high self-esteem in all three conditions (all means above 4.2 on the 5-point feelings faces scale) at both points in time. Also, there were no systematic correlational relationships between self-esteem and participants biases in playing or sharing within or across time. Overall, the Green Circle program did not have a measurable effect on participants self-esteem. Teachers ratings of student behavior. Teachers ratings of the frequency (1 = not at all to 7 = all the time ) with which children in their class fought, shared, teased, and played with other children in the class who were similar and different from themselves on the dimensions of race, gender, and weight demonstrated no condition x time interactions, which suggests that children s classroom behaviors were not influenced by the Green Circle program. Discussion The Brown v. Board of Education decision, which fifty years ago outlawed racial segregation in public schools, has had a profound effect on intergroup relations between Blacks and Whites, as well as on educational attainment in the United States. The beneficial effects of social contact, in general, and in educational settings, in particular, on intergroup relations have been amply documented (Pettigrew & Tropp, 2000). Nevertheless, mere contact between groups is not sufficient to guarantee positive intergroup relations; the nature of the contact is critical (see Lopez, this issue). Moreover, when younger children are involved, even specific interventions designed to promote favorable orientations toward members of other groups may not be successful. Bigler (1999) reviewed the literature and concluded, Empirical data suggest...that extant interventions have been largely ineffective in altering children s racial attitudes, and that this is true across the various forms of multicultural programming that have been evaluated (p. 690). The research reported in the present article builds upon previous work demonstrating the impact of desegregation and contact in adults and high school and college students by exploring how an elementary school intervention program, Green Circle, that is designed to influence children s orientations toward others in an integrated setting, can affect children s feelings about themselves and toward members of other groups. Overall, our results revealed that, today, first and second grade children in fairly well integrated classrooms still have a general preference for playing and sharing with children who are racially the same as themselves over children who are racially different. This finding is consistent with a large body of research

15 An Elementary School Intervention 49 demonstrating that children begin to develop ethnic attitudes by age three and develop systematic racial prejudices between 5- and 7-years old (Aboud & Amato, 2001). We note, however, that children s racial preferences were not as large as their biases favoring same-sex and average-weight children. Nevertheless, the operation of categorical thinking coupled with significant racial preferences among first and second grade students forms a basis for even more crystallized racial biases to develop during adolescence and beyond into adulthood in the absence of intervention. Our research further explored whether a particular intervention, the Green Circle program, can be effective at reducing biases based on race, sex, and weight among children of this age. At theoretical and applied levels, we ask: Does casting wider circles of inclusion increase attraction among those who are included? In terms of theory, in our controlled laboratory settings, the answer to this question is yes. Across a range of experimental studies related to the Common Ingroup Identity Model (Gaertner & Dovidio, 2000; Gaertner et al., 1993), there is consistent evidence that a variety of intergroup biases can be decreased by manipulations that lead members of different groups to recategorize themselves as one group within a common circle of inclusion. However, when we consider the effects of this particular intervention program in the less controlled environment of an elementary school, the answer to this question is more complex. In terms of outcomes, although the Green Circle intervention did not influence children s sharing and feelings about playing with children of a different sex and race generally, it did lead them to be more inclusive in their most preferred playmate. Specifically, compared to children in a control condition who did not participate in Green Circle activities, those who were part of Green Circle showed somewhat greater willingness to select other children who were different than themselves in race and in sex as a child that they would most want to play with. This effect occurred similarly for the Regular and the Group Enhanced versions of the Green Circle program. Perhaps because of the already strong emphasis on inclusive, common-group categorization in the Regular Green Circle program, our additional interventions to emphasize common group identity had little effect, in terms of outcomes, beyond the existing version of the Green Circle program. Nevertheless, conceptually, the findings of the present research further illustrate how, as suggested earlier (Gaertner & Dovidio, 2000; Hewstone, 1996; Pettigrew, 1998), interpersonal and intergroup routes toward reducing intergroup biases can involve complementary processes that reciprocally facilitate one another. That is, changes in intergroup boundaries can facilitate the occurrence of positive interpersonal behaviors across group lines such as self-disclosure and helping in college students (Dovidio et al., 1997), and, as the present study illustrates, preferred playmates in children. In terms of practical, public policy implications, one might conclude that the impact of the Green Circle intervention, which accounted for 14% of the variance

16 50 Houlette, Gaertner, Johnson, Banker, Riek, and Dovidio of the change in children s choice of their most preferred playmate (equivalent to an effect size, r, of.37), is modest and, thus, unimportant. Is this change too small to be worth the time or energy involved in the program? For several reasons, we propose that this effect may be quite important, particularly in the longer term. In general, even small statistical effects among individuals can have substantial social significance. For example, in a modeling study, Martell, Lane, and Emrich (1996) demonstrated that a 1% bias based on sex at the individual level translates into a 15% bias against women in hiring at a societal level. In addition, the magnitude of the effect we obtained for the change in children s choice of their most preferred playmate is comparable not only to the magnitude of effects associated with educational interventions (e.g., inservice training for teacher effectiveness) and work setting interventions (e.g., training programs for managerial effectiveness, r =.47 and.41; Cooper, Dorr, & Bettencourt, 1995), but also to the magnitude of effects for many well publicized medical interventions, such as the effects of AZT on the mortality of AIDS patients and cyclosporine on organ rejection (r =.47 and.39; see Lipsey & Wilson, 1993). Moreover, changes in preferred playmates has a particularly significant role in the way that intergroup contact can reduce bias over time for a particular individual and have more generalized effects for others. In particular, changes in the most preferred playmate involve a child s greater willingness to cross group boundaries in making friends a factor that is one of the most potent influences in producing more positive attitudes toward the outgroup as a whole (Pettigrew, 1998). In addition, these intergroup friendships can have cascading effects by reducing bias among peers. Making people aware that their friends have friends from another group also reduces prejudice toward the group as a whole (Wright, Aron, McLaughlin-Volpe, & Ropp, 1997). Therefore, if Green Circle can change the cross-racial friendship patterns among just a few children, this could have escalating, positive consequences through both direct contact and through this extended contact effect. In retrospect, we can identify a number of limitations of our assessment of the Green Circle intervention that could point to new directions for future research. First, our feelings faces measure focused on how children would feel about playing with other children. Because playing is a generally appealing activity, the variability of these responses may have been restricted. Perhaps more straightforward questions about liking or feelings, or direct questions about inclusory or exclusionary orientations (Killen & Stangor, 2001) would provide more sensitive measures. Second, the impact of the intervention might be stronger and clearer if for our assessment stimuli we used sociometric ratings of actual students in the class rather than drawings of children participants did not know. The use of stimuli representing actual children rather than drawings might be more sensitive because the questions are more concrete and relevant for the children. Also, the use of drawings involves a generalization of attitudes beyond the direct contact

17 An Elementary School Intervention 51 situation of the classroom, which has been a challenge for interventions even in the closely controlled-conditions of the laboratory (Gaertner & Dovidio, 2000). Third, because first and second graders are limited in their use of symbolic language, with more resources we could have systematically observed changes in the frequency and nature of intergroup contact over time in free play situations. Even our measures involving teachers observations of the children s behaviors toward similar and dissimilar others in their classrooms were only retrospective accounts, subject to errors of memory and expectation. Careful, systematic observations of participants in their classrooms or on the playground would be very desirable. Summary and Conclusion The research reported in this article describes a collaboration with the Green Circle organization to explore, jointly, implications of the Common Ingroup Identity Model (Gaertner & Dovidio, 2000; Gaertner et al., 1993) and the impact of the interventions represented by the Green Circle program for reducing biases in children. As Dovidio, Gaertner, Stewart, Esses, and ten Vergert (in press) noted, despite their enormous promise, collaborations between researchers and practitioners have been surprisingly rare in this area. Although the effects of the Green Circle intervention were limited in scope and magnitude, the results we observed in this elementary school setting, which is much less controlled than laboratory settings, are theoretically encouraging for the Common Ingroup Identity Model. The findings illustrate how the underlying principle of expanding inclusive social representations can be applied successfully in naturalistic settings with various distractions and potentially competing influences. Indeed, this principle of increasing the inclusiveness of ingroup boundaries and producing a more inclusive superordinate identity among students from different groups, may, in part, account for the successes of other intervention programs such cooperative learning and multicultural educational programs (see Stephan & Stephan, 2001). This opportunity to evaluate a program that presents ideas about increasing students circles of caring and sharing without being time-intensive and without high levels of cooperative intergroup interaction among students, but which nevertheless yields a positive, predictable effect, offers additional support for the fundamental idea underlying the Common Ingroup Identity Model. From a practical perspective, although the impact of the Green Circle intervention was limited, the impact may be significant. This experience may provide a critical foundation for the development of more positive intergroup attitudes and relations over time. Moreover, the impact of the program is roughly proportional to the percent of classroom time allocated to the intervention. The intervention occupied only 1.9% of the students time in school during the four-week intervention period, and it competed in terms of children s attention, effort, and reflection with the considerable school and social challenges that first and second graders face.