{"id":8756,"date":"2017-02-15T10:21:31","date_gmt":"2017-02-15T10:21:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=8756"},"modified":"2017-02-18T00:12:37","modified_gmt":"2017-02-18T00:12:37","slug":"combatting-stereotypes-how-to-talk-to-your-children","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/combatting-stereotypes-how-to-talk-to-your-children\/","title":{"rendered":"Combatting stereotypes: How to talk to your children"},"content":{"rendered":"

Marjorie Rhodes<\/a>, New York University<\/a><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

How can modern parents raise the next generation to be free from corrosive gender and racial stereotypes? By the time children start elementary school, gender and race shape their lives in many ways that parents might want to prevent. As early as first grade, girls are less likely than boys<\/a> to think members of their own gender are \u201creally, really smart.\u201d And by just age three, white children in the United States implicitly endorse stereotypes that African-American faces are angrier than white faces<\/a>.<\/p>\n

These stereotypes go deeper than children\u2019s beliefs \u2013 they can also shape a child\u2019s behavior. By age six, girls are less likely than boys to choose activities that seem to require them to be really smart<\/a>, which could contribute to the development of long-term gender differences in science and math achievement<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Why do stereotypes develop in such young children? As a professor of early cognitive and social development, I have seen my research reveal how surprisingly subtle features of language contribute to a child\u2019s tendency to view the world through the lens of social stereotypes.<\/p>\n

The problem of generalization<\/h2>\n

Many parents try to prevent the development of stereotypes in children by avoiding saying things like, \u201cboys are good at math,\u201d or \u201cgirls cannot be leaders.\u201d Instead, parents might take care to say things that are positive, like \u201cgirls can be anything they want.\u201d <\/p>\n

But our research<\/a> has found that, to the developing mind, even these positive statements can have negative consequences.<\/p>\n

For young children, how we speak is often more important than what we say. Generalizations, even if they say only things that are positive or neutral, such as \u201cGirls can be anything they want,\u201d \u201cHispanics live in the Bronx\u201d or \u201cMuslims eat different foods,\u201d communicate that we can tell what someone is like just by knowing her gender, ethnicity or religion. <\/p>\n

In our research, published in Child Development<\/a>, we found that hearing generalizations led children as young as two years old to assume that groups mark stable and important differences between individual people.<\/p>\n

In this study, children were introduced to a new, made-up way of categorizing people: \u201cZarpies.\u201d If they only heard statements about specific individuals, (e.g., \u201cThese Zarpies whisper when they talk\u201d), children continued to treat the people as individuals, even though they were all marked by the same label and wore similar clothes. But if they heard the same information as a generalization (e.g., \u201cZarpies whisper when they talk\u201d), they started to think that \u201cZarpies\u201d are very different from everyone else. Hearing generalizations led children to think that being a member of the group determined what the members would be like.<\/p>\n

In another recent study<\/a>, we found that hearing these types of generalizations \u2013 even if none of them was negative \u2013 led five-year-old children to share fewer resources (in this case, colorful stickers) with members outside their own social group.<\/p>\n

These findings show that hearing generalizations, even positive or neutral ones, contributes to the tendency to view the world through the lens of social stereotypes. It is the form of the sentence, not exactly what it says, that matters to young children.<\/p>\n

\n \"\"<\/a>
\n Studies show that repeatedly hearing generalizing language can negatively impact children\u2019s behavior toward different social groups.<\/span>
\n Department of Education<\/a>, CC BY<\/a><\/span>
\n <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

From groups to individuals<\/h2>\n

Our research means that generalizations are problematic even if children do not understand them. <\/p>\n

If a young child overhears, \u201cMuslims are terrorists,\u201d the child might not know what it means to be a Muslim or a terrorist. But the child can still learn something problematic \u2013 that Muslims, whoever they are, are a distinct kind of person. That it is possible to make assumptions about what someone is like just by knowing if they are Muslim or not.<\/p>\n

Language that uses specifics \u2013 instead of making general claims \u2013 avoids these problems. Sentences like, \u201cHer family is Hispanic and lives in the Bronx,\u201d \u201cThis Muslim family eats different foods,\u201d \u201cThose girls are great at math,\u201d \u201cYou can be anything you want,\u201d all avoid making general claims about groups. <\/p>\n

Using specific language can also teach children to challenge their own and others\u2019 generalizations. My three-year-old recently announced that \u201cBoys play guitar,\u201d despite knowing many female guitar players. This troubled me, not because it matters very much what he thinks about guitar playing, but because this way of talking means that he is starting to think that gender determines what a person can do. <\/p>\n

But there is a very easy and natural way to respond to statements like these, which our research<\/a> suggests reduces stereotyping. Simply say, \u201cOh? Who are you thinking of? Who did you see play the guitar?\u201d Children usually have someone in mind. \u201cYes, that man at the restaurant played the guitar tonight. And yes, so does Grandpa.\u201d This response guides children to think in terms of individuals, instead of groups. <\/p>\n

This approach works for more sensitive generalizations too \u2013 things a child might say, like \u201cBig boys are mean,\u201d or \u201cMuslims wear funny clothes.\u201d Parents can ask children who they are thinking of and discuss whatever specific incident they have in mind. Sometimes children speak this way because they are testing out whether drawing a generalization is sensible. By bringing them back to the specific incident, we communicate to them that it is not.<\/p>\n

\n \"\"<\/a>
\n Teachers and parents both influence the way children think about groups and individuals.<\/span>
\n Department of Education<\/a>, CC BY<\/a><\/span>
\n <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Every interaction counts<\/h2>\n

How much can this small change in language really matter? Parents, teachers and other caring adults cannot control everything that children hear, and exposure to explicitly racist, sexist or xenophobic ideas can also influence a child\u2019s view of societal norms and values.<\/p>\n

But children develop their sense of the world through minute-by-minute conversations with important adults in their lives. These adults have powerful platforms with their children. As parents and caregivers, we can use our language carefully to help children learn to view themselves and others as individuals, free to choose their own paths. With our language, we can help children develop habits of mind that challenge, rather than endorse, stereotyped views of the people around us.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

Marjorie Rhodes<\/a>, Associate Professor of Psychology, New York University<\/a><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

This article was originally published on The Conversation<\/a>. Read the original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Marjorie Rhodes, New York University How can modern parents raise the next generation to be free from corrosive gender and racial stereotypes? By the time children start elementary school, gender and race shape their lives in many ways that parents might want to prevent. As early as first grade, girls are less likely than boys […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":8757,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[292],"tags":[1977,1034,228,1538,1976,1728,1677],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8756"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8756"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8756\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8758,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8756\/revisions\/8758"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8757"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8756"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8756"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8756"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}