THEORETICAL QUESTIONS AND METHODOLOGICAL CHALLENGES IN RESEARCH ADDRESSING DEVELOPMENT OF ETHNIC PREJUDICE IN CHILDREN

The aim of the paper is to provide an overview of research and theories of development of ethnic and national prejudice in children. A particular emphasis is placed on the historical overview of research methods used to asses prejudice in children, an overview of methodological issues as well as limitations of the methods used. Improvements and changes in the applied methods have resulted in changes in the knowledge on prejudice in children. Although there are many models and theories aimed at explaining childhood prejudice, the two most cited and emphasised ones are the social-cognitive theory of the development of prejudice (A hood, 1988) and the social identity development theory (Nesdale, 1999, 2004). Whereas Aboud's theory interprets prejudice primarily from the perspective of cognitive development of children, the social identity development theory (Nesdale, 2004) focuses on children's tendency to identify themselves with their social group, i.e. factors of motivation underlining development of prejudice. Both theories agree that the occurrence of prejudice is not adaptive, inevitable or normal (A baud and Amato, 2001). Taking into consideration that research results did not confirm neither a universal development of prejudice in various socio-political contexts nor the inadequacy of explaining the development of prejudice in children exclusively by cognitive and social-motivational factors, certain models and theories that, in addition to taking into account individual and developmental factors also consider a wider social context of children, have emerged (for instance: integrative-developmental-contextual theory, Teichman and Bar-Tat 2005; societal-social-cognitive-motivational theory, Barrett, 2007). After the overview of the basic theoretical presumptions of the named theories and the results of the conducted research, the paper presents a review of the existing approaches to reducing prejudice in children.