Citation

Brenick A, Lawrence SE, Carvalheiro D, Berger R. J. Sch. Psychol. 2019; 75: 8-26.

Affiliation

Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Israel.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2019, Society for the Study of School Psychology, Publisher Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.jsp.2019.07.001

PMID

31474283

Abstract

Although contact-based interventions are the cornerstone of prejudice reduction, in high-conflict environments, incendiary contact with outgroups can instead exacerbate negative attitudes. Supplementing contact interventions with social-cognitive/emotional approaches may, instead, help facilitate positive contact. This study evaluated the effectiveness of two prejudice reduction interventions among 148 Palestinian-Israeli and 154 Jewish-Israeli 5th grade students (M_age.years = 10.55, SD = 0.26) in a high conflict area. Schools in Jaffa, Israel were assigned to a social-cognitive/emotional skills-based intervention, a skills- and contact-based intervention (i.e., skills, skills+contact), or the control group-all delivered as part of the curriculum. Prejudice was assessed through participants' judgments of and justifications about hypothetical scenarios of intergroup exclusion in peer and home contexts at pre-test, post-test, and 6-month follow-up. Repeated measures ANOVAs showed various main effects including gender, ethnicity, and context in which the exclusion occurred (peer/home). Significant higher level interactions with group by time demonstrated the positive influence of both treatment groups on prejudice reduction. The skills and skills+contact groups became more rejecting while the control group became more accepting of exclusion across time. Additionally, the skills and skills+contact groups increased in moral and empathic reasoning over time, whereas the control group increased in social conventional and stereotyped prejudiced reasoning. These findings illustrate the effectiveness of in-school social-cognitive/emotional skills and combined skills+contact approaches in reducing the prejudiced attitudes of Palestinian- and Jewish-Israeli pre-adolescents, especially in areas with protracted conflict.

Copyright © 2019 Society for the Study of School Psychology. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Language: en

Keywords

Intergroup contact; Intergroup social exclusion; Middle-east; Prejudice reduction interventions; Social domain model; Social-cognitive skills; Social-emotional skills