JOURNAL OF LANGUAGE AND SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY / March/June 2001

Nesdale / LANGUAGE AND ETHNIC PREJUDICE

LANGUAGE AND THE

DEVELOPMENT OF
CHILDREN’S ETHNIC
PREJUDICE

DREW NESDALE
Griffith University

This article considers whether the study of children’s language in intergroup contexts
enhances our understanding of the development of children’s ethnic prejudice. It is con-
cluded that whereas children’s ethnic preferences may be well established by 6 years of
age, ethnic prejudice does not emerge in middle childhood. In addition, whether children
develop ethnic prejudice does not appear to be directly dependent on their perceptual-
cognitive abilities or the proximity of prejudiced others. Nevertheless, children may
express racist statements toward ethnic outgroups by 5 years of age, and parents and peers
are the primary sources of these expressions. However, such expressions are typically not
held as the child’s own. That is, younger children may have the verbal fluency, but not the
intergroup attitudes and stereotypes of older children in whom ethnic prejudice is fully
realized. The implications of these findings for minimizing children’s ethnic prejudice are
considered.

I first met Peter Robinson in Perth, Western Australia, in the late

1970s. At that time, I was part of a group that had commenced a large
research project on the development of metalinguistic awareness in
children. The focus of the research was on the four general types of
metalinguistic awareness—phonological, word, syntactic, and prag-
matic awareness—and their relationship to cognitive development,
reading acquisition, bilingualism, and early childhood education.
Given this focus, it was fitting that Peter Robinson should be invited
to serve as an external consultant to the project (indeed, as we subse-
quently discovered, he had actually been one of the reviewers of the
original grant application). As readers would be aware, the develop-
ment of children’s pragmatic awareness (i.e., their knowledge or
awareness of the relationships that obtain between the linguistic sys-
tem and the context in which the language is embedded) was a topic
that he had already researched extensively at that time, and was to
continue to do so (e.g., E. J. Robinson & Robinson, 1984, 1985; W. P. Rob-
inson, 1981). Needless to say, Peter was generous with his time and
ideas and exerted a considerable influence on our own efforts on this

JOURNAL OF LANGUAGE AND SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY,

Vol. 20 Nos. 1 & 2, March/June 2001 90-110
2001 Sage Publications, Inc.
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Nesdale / LANGUAGE AND ETHNIC PREJUDICE 91

aspect of the project (e.g., L. H. Nesdale & Nesdale, 1987; Pratt &
Nesdale, 1984; Pratt, Tunmer, & Nesdale, 1989).
It is important, however, that we were also exposed to the broad
range of his research interests, including the many thought-provoking
ideas in his book, Language and Social Behaviour (W. P. Robinson,
1972), which was groundbreaking in its focus on the interface between
these two disciplines. Of particular note was his early emphasis on
social identity and the potential significance of social or group identifi-
cation mediating between the reception of spoken languages and
accents and listeners’ ascriptions of personality traits and stereotypes
to the speaker. Again, these were issues that we subsequently took up
in our own research with children (e.g., A. R. Nesdale & Rooney, 1990,
1996).
Of central relevance to the present article, however, was Peter’s
research on social class and, in particular, the differential effect of
social class on mothers’ attitudes toward language and language devel-
opment, mothers’ actual and reported linguistic behavior in interac-
tion with children, and children’s subsequent behavior (e.g., W. P. Rob-
inson, 1965a, 1965b). In short, his conclusion was that “the learning
opportunities offered by the mother are determinants of the verbal
behaviors of the children . . . the social class differences among children
echo their mothers” (W. P. Robinson, 1972, pp. 181-182).
This article also focuses on aspects of children’s behavior and the
extent to which they are related to the language to which children are
exposed. In the present case, however, the focus is on the development
of children’s ethnic attitudes and stereotypes. It is important that,
whereas Peter’s earlier research focused on intergenerational effects
within social groups or classes, the present article considers the rela-
tionship between language and intergroup processes in children.
Again, however, it will be recognized that the impact of language in cre-
ating and perpetuating intergroup relationships has also figured
prominently among Peter’s concerns. In a recent paper, he sharply
underlined the lack of attention accorded to language by social psy-
chologists interested in intergroup relations. Of particular concern to
him are the ways in which texts and the mass media perpetuate
unwarranted intergroup perceptions and divisions (W. P. Robinson,
1995).
This article seeks to extend this analysis. Specifically, the aim is to
consider whether the study of children’s language serves to illuminate
our understanding of the nature of the development of children’s eth-
nic prejudice. The treatment begins with a necessarily abbreviated
review of the main methods used to assess children’s ethnic prejudice,
the broad thrust of the findings that have been reported, and the rela-
tively common view that children’s prejudice largely reflects the influ-
ence of parents and peers. Consideration is then given to Aboud’s
(1988; Aboud & Doyle, 1996a, 1996b) contrary claim that children’s
92 JOURNAL OF LANGUAGE AND SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY / March/June 2001

ethnic attitudes reflect their developing perceptual-cognitive pro-

cesses, rather than the attitudes and language of those around them.
This is followed by an analysis of research that has assessed children’s
language in relation to intergroup contexts. As will be seen, this analy-
sis adds considerably to our understanding of the nature of the emer-
gence of ethnic prejudice in children (up to 12 years of age) and the role
of language in this process.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF
CHILDREN’S ETHNIC PREJUDICE

Beginning in the 1930s, a vast amount of research has addressed

the development of children’s ethnic prejudice (i.e., their feelings of dis-
like or hatred toward members of ethnic outgroups), together with
related issues such as the acquisition of ethnic awareness, ethnic self-
identification, and ethnic stereotyping (see reviews by Aboud, 1988;
Brown, 1995; Davey, 1983; A. R. Nesdale, 1999b). Although research on
these topics has continued (e.g., Aboud & Doyle, 1996b; Augoustinos &
Rosewarne, in press; Boulton, 1995; A. R. Nesdale, 1999a, 1999b; A. R.
Nesdale & Flesser, in press), the great bulk of the research was carried
out from the 1950s to the 1970s, often using techniques that were pio-
neered in this period. Given the difficulties in measuring constructs
such as ethnic awareness, identification, and prejudice, especially in
young children, researchers have utilized a variety of techniques,
including ethnic preferences, trait assignments, structured interviews,
behavior observations, questionnaires, sociograms, and projective
tests, although the first two (ethnic preferences and trait assignments)
have dominated the field.
The ethnic preference technique emerged from the separate but
overlapping work of Horowitz (1936; Horowitz & Horowitz, 1938) and
K. B. Clark and Clark (1947). Horowitz showed children a page display-
ing photos of White and Black children and asked them which person
they liked best, next best, next best, and so forth. In another version,
the children engaged in a social distance–type task, indicating the per-
son that they wanted to sit next to, to be in their class, to play ball with,
and so forth. Pro-White bias/anti-Black rejection in both tests was then
based on the proportion of ingroup versus outgroup children selected
(e.g., George & Hoppe, 1979; Rice, Ruiz, & Padilla, 1974; Vaughan,
1964a; Zinser, Rich, & Bailey, 1981).
In a similar but more dramatic vein, the Clarks devised a task in
which children were presented with a pair of dolls that were identical
except for skin color, being clad only in brief diapers to expose maxi-
mum skin surface (K. B. Clark & Clark, 1947). Children were then
asked a series of eight questions: “Give me the doll that you want to
play with,” “That is a nice doll,” “That looks bad,” “That is a nice color,”
Nesdale / LANGUAGE AND ETHNIC PREJUDICE 93

“That looks like a white child,” “That looks like a colored child,” “That
looks like a Negro child,” and “That looks like you.” Responses to the
first four questions were considered to be evaluative responses that
reflected the child’s ethnic preference, the next three questions were
included as measures of ethnic awareness or knowledge, and the final
question was a measure of ethnic self-identification (e.g., Asher &
Allen, 1969; Greenwald & Oppenheim, 1968; Vaughan, 1964b).
In the trait attribution technique, children were asked to assign pos-
itive (e.g., good, clean, nice) and negative traits and attributes (e.g.,
bad, dirty, sad) to one of two stimulus figures (e.g., photo, drawing) rep-
resenting the ingroup and ethnic outgroup (e.g., “Which child is the
dirty boy?”). The children’s intergroup attitudes were then based on
the ratio of positive to negative traits chosen for the ingroup versus
outgroup stimulus figures (e.g., A. Clark, Hocevar, & Dembo, 1980;
Horowitz & Horowitz, 1938; Williams, Best, & Boswell, 1975; Williams &
Morland, 1976), although some researchers have disaggregated the
children’s trait assignment responses so as to provide measures of chil-
dren’s ingroup bias/outgroup rejection and ingroup rejection/outgroup
bias (Black-Gutman & Hickson, 1996; Doyle & Aboud, 1995).
Based on the ethnic preference and trait attribution techniques, a
remarkably consistent set of findings emerged, especially in relation to
dominant group children. The ethnic preference studies revealed that
children can differentiate among people based on racial cues from a
very early age, and certainly by about 4 years their racial awareness
enables them to distinguish explicitly among members of different
racial groups. There is also extensive evidence that from 4 years on,
children from the ethnically dominant group can accurately identify
their own ethnic group membership, and they reveal increasingly
strong ingroup bias in their choices. Similarly, trait attribution studies
consistently revealed that dominant group children displayed an
increase in ingroup positivity/outgroup negativity in their trait attri-
butions from 3 to 4 years of age (see reviews by Aboud, 1988; P. A. Katz,
1976). Based on her review of the literature and her own more recent
findings, Aboud further concluded that this bias actually peaks at
roughly 6 to 7 years, and then gradually declines during middle
childhood.
Although some researchers have argued to the contrary (e.g., Aboud,
1988; Gregor & McPherson, 1966), a common view of the preceding find-
ings is that they simply reflect the children’s ingroup preference rather
than their feelings of outgroup dislike or hatred (e.g., Brand, Ruiz, &
Padilla, 1974; P. A. Katz, 1976; A. R. Nesdale, in press; Proshansky,
1966; Stephan & Rosenfield, 1979). Consistent with this view is the
fact that the techniques have typically called for a forced choice that
does not necessarily imply dislike for, or rejection of, the unchosen
stimulus (e.g., Brand et al., 1974; P. A. Katz, 1976), that children’s trait
attribution responses are not matched by their open-ended statements
94 JOURNAL OF LANGUAGE AND SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY / March/June 2001

(e.g., Aboud & Doyle, 1996a), that there is a lack of correspondence

between children’s ethnic preferences and their choice of friends and
playmates (e.g., Fishbein & Imai, 1993; Jansen & Gallagher, 1966), and
that children who are given the opportunity to rate minority group
children on bipolar scales (i.e., like-dislike) tend to express greater lik-
ing for the ingroup versus the outgroup, rather than liking for the
ingroup and dislike for the outgroup (e.g., Aboud & Mitchell, 1977; A. R.
Nesdale, 1999a).
A recent study by Augoustinos and Rosewarne (in press) made the
latter point especially clear. In their study, 5- to 6-year-old and 8- to
9-year-old White Australian children were asked to endorse the posi-
tive and negative adjectives that they considered were held by most
people in relation to White and Black stimulus figures (i.e., stereo-
types) and to indicate what they believed themselves (e.g., personal
beliefs). The findings indicated that the 5- to 6-year-old children did
not distinguish between stereotypes and personal beliefs, whereas the
older children did. Moreover, the younger children endorsed the posi-
tive adjectives more strongly for the White versus Black figures,
whereas the negative adjectives were endorsed more strongly for the
Black versus White figures. In contrast, whereas the older children
yielded the same result in the stereotype condition, they were less neg-
ative and more positive to the Black stimulus figure in the personal
belief condition. The important points to note from these findings are,
first, that the children did not simply assign positive adjectives to the
White figure and negative adjectives to the Black figure, even at 8 to 9
years of age. Second, it is probable that the results say more about the
children’s ingroup versus outgroup preferences (i.e., relative liking)
than about the children’s outgroup stereotypes (i.e., beliefs about the
traits shared by group members) because both groups were actually
assigned the same stereotype, with the ingroup’s stereotype simply
being more positive than the outgroup’s.
In sum, based on the preceding findings, the common view has been
that real ethnic prejudice—signified by, for example, racial cleavage,
epithets, or tension—when it does emerge in children, does not actu-
ally appear until children are well into middle childhood, roughly 9 or
10 years of age (e.g., Goodman, 1952; P. A. Katz, 1976; Milner, 1996;
Proshansky, 1966). By this time, it is considered that the process of eth-
nic attitude differentiation, integration, and consolidation has been
progressed by the child’s attainment of ethnic constancy and the
child’s adoption of the language of racism. That is, the child has
acquired the cognitive and linguistic foundations on which a full-blown
intergroup attitude can be constructed (P. A. Katz, 1976; Proshansky,
1966).
It is important that the sequence from ethnic preference to ethnic
prejudice has also generally been considered to reflect the influence of
the child’s social environment, particularly the impact of the child’s
Nesdale / LANGUAGE AND ETHNIC PREJUDICE 95

parents and peers. The most widely accepted version of this approach
has been that children simply learn their ethnic attitudes from these
sources in the same way that they learn other social behaviors (e.g.,
Allport, 1954; Rosenfield & Stephan, 1981). Thus, as Horowitz and
Horowitz put it as far back as 1936, “attitudes toward Negroes, are now
chiefly determined not by contact with Negroes but by contact with the
prevalent attitude towards Negroes” (pp. 34-35). However, another
version was that children’s ethnic attitudes comprised a displacement
of their repressed resentment toward parents, who displayed authori-
tarian child-rearing practices toward them (e.g., Frenkel-Brunswick,
1948).
Although researchers subsequently challenged and largely dis-
credited the latter version (e.g., Epstein & Komorita, 1966a, 1966b;
Mosher & Scodel, 1960; Pushkin & Norburn, 1983), the importance
accorded to parents and peers as the primary sources of children’s eth-
nic attitudes has remained largely unchallenged until some recent,
comparatively startling claims by Aboud (1988; Aboud & Doyle, 1996a,
1996b). In short, Aboud has argued that

most, if not all, children display ethnic prejudice by 5 to 7 years of

age;
there is no strong evidence that children’s prejudice is influenced
by the attitudes of parents or peers; but instead
children’s ethnic attitudes reflect their developing perceptual-
cognitive processes.

Consideration of Aboud’s claims follows, with particular emphasis

placed on the extent to which parents and peers influence children’s
ethnic attitudes.

ABOUD’S SOCIOCOGNITIVE THEORY

OF CHILDREN’S PREJUDICE

According to Aboud’s (1988) sociocognitive theory (SCT), a child’s

attitude to other groups of children depends on his or her levels of
development in relation to two overlapping sequences of perceptual-
cognitive development. One sequence involves the process that domi-
nates a child’s experience at a particular time. The child is initially
dominated by affective-perceptual processes associated with fear of
the unknown and attachment to the familiar. Perceptual processes
subsequently dominate, preference for the (similar) ingroup and rejec-
tion of the (different) outgroup being determined primarily by physical
attributes (e.g., skin color, language, body size). Thereafter, cognitive
processes take ascendancy with the advent of the concrete operational
stage of cognitive development at about 7 years of age and, later, formal
operational thinking (Flavell, 1963). The effect of the transition to
96 JOURNAL OF LANGUAGE AND SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY / March/June 2001

cognitive processes is that the child is increasingly able to understand

the individual rather than the group-based qualities of people. Over-
lapping this sequence is a second sequence of development, which is
concerned with changes in the child’s focus of attention. Whereas very
young children mostly focus on themselves and their preferences and
perceptions, older children emphasize categories of people such that
individuals are seen as members of these categories or groups. Still
later, however, children focus on individuals, who are liked or disliked
for their personal rather than group qualities.
Based on these sociocognitive developments, Aboud (1988) argued
that ingroup bias and outgroup prejudice increase to a peak between 5
and 7 years of age, when group differences are paramount. However,
with subsequent increases in the child’s cognitive abilities, occasioned
by the onset of concrete operational thinking at about 7 years of age,
Aboud claimed that there is a systematic decline in group-based biases,
which is further enhanced when the child’s ever-increasing cognitive
abilities allow him or her to attend to the differences between
individuals.
Consistent with SCT are the results of studies reviewed earlier on
the development of majority group children’s ethnic awareness and
ethnic self-identification (e.g., Aboud, 1977, 1980; Newman, Liss, &
Sherman, 1983), and their ethnic preferences and attitudes (e.g.,
Aboud & Mitchell, 1977; Vaughan, 1964a). In addition, research has
revealed evidence of apparent linkages between the development of
children’s cognitive abilities from 3 to 12 years of age and several types
of ethnic cognitions. For example, it has been reported that children’s
understanding of conservation (an achievement of the concrete opera-
tional stage of cognitive development) is correlated with ethnic flexibil-
ity, the understanding that ethnically similar and different individuals
can have different and similar attributes, respectively (e.g., Doyle,
Beaudet, & Aboud, 1988), and ethnic constancy, the understanding
that ethnicity remains the same despite superficial transformations in
skin color or clothing (e.g., Semaj, 1980). Furthermore, research by
Aboud and her colleagues (e.g., Doyle & Aboud, 1995; Doyle, Beaudet, &
Aboud, 1988) has revealed that the acquisition of concrete operational
thinking coincided with a decrease in ingroup prejudice (using the trait
attribution measure) and that the mastery of conservation preceded
the reduction in prejudice. Finally, as Aboud has pointed out (Aboud &
Doyle, 1996a, 1996b), when the correlations between the ethnic atti-
tudes of dominant group parents and their children have been
assessed, they have frequently been low (e.g., Bird, Monachesi, &
Burdick, 1952; Frenkel-Brunswick & Havel, 1953) or nonexistent (e.g.,
Aboud & Doyle, 1996b; Pushkin, as cited in Davey, 1983).
However, there are also issues and research findings that provide a
challenge to key aspects of SCT (for a more detailed discussion, see
A. R. Nesdale, 1999b). For example, although it is now widely accepted
Nesdale / LANGUAGE AND ETHNIC PREJUDICE 97

that cognitive developmental changes are implicated in the acquisition

and expression of many social behaviors (Durkin, 1995), their impor-
tance in children’s ethnic prejudice remains unclear. Thus, although
Doyle and Aboud (1995) found a linkage between children’s conserva-
tion and prejudice, up to 50% of the children who could conserve still
displayed prejudice. In addition, Doyle et al. (1988) found that chil-
dren’s prejudice continued to decline long after they could conserve,
again suggesting that additional factors were implicated in the expres-
sion of prejudice, beyond the merely cognitive.
Furthermore, the actual nature of the pattern of children’s
responses that SCT seeks to explain is not unambiguous. That is, SCT
has been proposed to account for a pattern of findings in which the level
of prejudice in young children first increases to a peak between 5 and 7
years, and then gradually declines during middle childhood. Indeed,
Aboud’s account might be taken to indicate that ethnic prejudice
ceases to be a problem during the elementary school years, or at least is
substantially ameliorated. However, leaving aside the question of
whether preferences are equivalent to prejudice, there are findings
that suggest that this may not be so. Although there are certainly a
number of studies that have reported an unambiguous decrease in
preference/prejudice after 7 years, as sociocognitive theory would pre-
dict (e.g., Aboud & Mitchell, 1977; George & Hoppe, 1979; Vaughan,
1964a; Williams et al., 1975), other studies have reported not only that
ingroup preference remained at the same level from 7 to 12 years (e.g.,
Asher & Allen, 1969; Banks & Rompf, 1973; Davey, 1983; Milner, 1973;
Teplin, 1976; Weiland & Coughlin, 1979), but that ingroup preference
actually increased during these years (e.g., Bartel, Bartel, & Grill,
1973; Hraba & Grant, 1970; Rice et al., 1974; Vaughan & Thompson,
1961). As has been revealed, however, there are good reasons for ques-
tioning whether the ethnic preference data on which sociocognitive
theory is founded, and which it seeks to explain, actually comprises
ethnic prejudice.
SCT also offers a developmental account that is largely indifferent
to the social context and motivational considerations. For example, it is
unlikely that the initiation of prejudice in children is governed simply
by the child’s affective-perceptual processes associated with fear of the
unknown (and attachment to the familiar) because some, but not all,
physical differences are associated with prejudice in both children and
adults, the physical differences young children respond to are also
those of racial significance to adults (P. A. Katz, Sohn, & Zalk, 1975),
and strong prejudices (e.g., toward particular national groups, reli-
gions) can occur even in the absence of physical differences (Tajfel,
Jahoda, Nemeth, Rim, & Johnson, 1972). Together, these points
emphasize the fact that the differentiation of racial cues by young chil-
dren is not determined solely by their perceptual distinctiveness based
on unfamiliarity. Rather, the cues to which even young children
98 JOURNAL OF LANGUAGE AND SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY / March/June 2001

respond have a distinctiveness that is socially determined, particu-

larly by the labels and evaluative statements applied to groups by
peers and adults (P. A. Katz, 1976; Vaughan, 1987). Although Aboud
appears to recognize this point, she nevertheless remains committed to
the view that “although social agents may identify the targets of preju-
dice, the child’s immature cognitive processes are responsible for
translating social information into biased attitudes” (Aboud & Doyle,
1996b, p. 372).
Close appraisal of the research, however, suggests that it would be
simply inappropriate to dismiss the influence of parents and peers on
the ethnic attitudes of children. Although this issue is discussed in
greater detail in the following section, several points are relevant at
this stage. For example, although some studies have reported low (e.g.,
Bird et al., 1952; Frenkel-Brunswick & Havel, 1953) or nonexistent
correlations (e.g., Aboud & Doyle, 1996b; Pushkin, as cited in Davey,
1983) between the attitudes of parents and children, others have
reported significant correlations (e.g., Carlson & Iovini, 1985; Mosher &
Scodel, 1960). Similarly, Aboud and Doyle (1996a) reported a signifi-
cant peer effect in one study, but not in another (Aboud & Doyle, 1996b,
Study 2).
In addition, most studies that have assessed the relationship
between parents’ and children’s ethnic attitudes have typically not
focused on children younger than 8 years of age. Instead, their focus
has been on children in the middle childhood years (e.g., Aboud &
Doyle, 1996b, Study 1; Bird et al., 1952; Mosher & Scodel, 1960) or ado-
lescence (e.g., Carlson & Iovini, 1985)—that is, the years in which chil-
dren’s attitudes might be expected to be increasingly susceptible to the
views of their peers. At the same time, it is noteworthy that both
Mosher and Scodel (1960) and Carlson and Iovini (1985) still found sig-
nificant correlations between the attitudes of parents and their chil-
dren. Furthermore, given the age (hence cognitive) differences
between parents and children, researchers have typically used quite
different instruments to measure their attitudes, thereby enhancing
the possibility of low or nonexistent correlations (e.g., Aboud & Doyle,
1996b, Study 1; Bird et al., 1952), although significant correlations
have still been reported using different instruments (e.g., Mosher &
Scodel, 1960).
Furthermore, whereas social desirability concerns are generally
considered to increase in children with increasing age (e.g., A. Clark
et al., 1980; P. A. Katz, 1976; see also Aboud, 1988), it is likely that such
concerns may be even greater in parents, who have frequently been
found to deny responsibility for their children’s prejudicial statements
(e.g., Horowitz & Horowitz, 1938; Porter, 1971; Radke-Yarrow, Trager, &
Miller, 1952). Again, this would contribute to reducing the extent of
parent-child attitudinal similarity. Indeed, on this basis, it is unsur-
prising that children believe that their parents share similar ethnic
Nesdale / LANGUAGE AND ETHNIC PREJUDICE 99

attitudes with them (e.g., Aboud & Doyle, 1996b; Epstein & Komorita,
1966a, 1966b), but that the actual similarity may sometimes be less
than children believe (e.g., Aboud & Doyle, 1996b; Carlson & Iovini,
1985).
In sum, the preceding discussion reveals mixed support for Aboud’s
sociocognitive theory of the development of children’s ethnic attitudes.
At this stage, the claim that most, if not all, children display ethnic
prejudice by 5 to 7 years of age is difficult to sustain. In addition, al-
though there is some support for the influence of perceptual-cognitive
processes on children’s ethnic attitudes, their influence does not
appear to be at the total expense of social influences, particularly those
of parents and peers. By the same token, based on the evidence consid-
ered, the influence of parents and peers is also not predominant,
although there are grounds for arguing that the modesty of the effects
reported might also reflect other considerations (e.g., methodological,
social presentational). This aspect is taken up again in the next sec-
tion, with a consideration of the role of language in children’s ethnic
prejudice.

LANGUAGE AND CHILDREN’S ETHNIC PREJUDICE

Compared with the frequency of ethnic preference and trait attribu-

tion studies, relatively few attempts have been made to explore the
development of young children’s ethnic attitudes by examining their
verbal responses to structured and unstructured interviews (e.g.,
Boulton, 1995; Chyatte, Schaefer, & Spiaggia, 1951; Goodman, 1946;
Hartley, Rosenbaum, & Schwartz, 1948a, 1948b; Horowitz & Horo-
witz, 1938; Porter, 1971; Radke & Trager, 1950; Radke, Trager, & Davis,
1949; Radke-Yarrow et al., 1952). Nevertheless, these studies make an
important contribution to the present discussion, for several reasons.
First, examination of the protocols indicates that, whereas domi-
nant group children have revealed ingroup preference from as young
as 3 years, some expressed negative affect in their verbal statements
toward minority outgroups by 5 years (e.g., Goodman, 1946; Porter,
1971; Radke et al., 1949). For example, Radke et al. (1949) provided the
following examples:

White boy, kindergarten

Q: Are they (White and Negro boys in a picture) friends? Why?
A: The White ones—yeah. They don’t like him (Negro)—they don’t
want him to play. (p. 372)
White girl, kindergarten
Q: Is this little boy glad he is colored? Why?
A: No. Because White children don’t like coloreds because they
fight too much.
Q: Would he sometimes want to be a White boy? Why?
A: Yes. Because White boys do more things than coloreds. More
gooder things. (p. 349)
100 JOURNAL OF LANGUAGE AND SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY / March/June 2001

Second, although young children were found to express negative

affect toward minority group members, race was nevertheless found to
be less salient to young children than gender, and typically so until at
least 9 or 10 years (Boulton, 1995; Radke et al., 1949), a finding that
has also been revealed using a range of other techniques (e.g., Davey,
1983; Fishbein & Imai, 1993; Goldstein, Koopman, & Goldstein, 1979;
Stevenson & Stewart, 1958). For example, Radke et al. (1949) found
that when children described pictures of multiracial groups, they
focused on gender—their descriptions were devoid of references to
race. It is important, however, that when race labels were subsequently
applied to the picture characters by the experimenter, there was a dra-
matic increase in the children’s negative statements about the
outgroup characters at each age level (5 to 9 years), and with increas-
ing age. Seemingly, the adult-supplied labels served as cues for
responses that were more “appropriate” to the stimulus material. On
this point, it is noteworthy, of course, that the ethnic preference and
trait attribution techniques also facilitate such a response because
they strip away all individuating information until only the skin color
cue remains as a basis for choice. Nevertheless, it also needs to be rec-
ognized that the relative salience of race and gender can be reversed,
apparently depending on community norms and the local level of racial
tension (e.g., Horowitz & Horowitz, 1938).
Third, although the research revealed that the negative affective
tone of comments directed toward racial outgroups continued with age,
they were typically not personalized (e.g., children would say, “they
think” vs. “I think”), nor were they peppered with derogatory ethnic
labels (e.g., “niggers,” “nigras,” “kykes,” etc.) or racial epithets (e.g.,
Goodman, 1946; Horowitz & Horowitz, 1938; Radke et al., 1949).
Although the use of unambiguously racist language has occasionally
been observed in children (e.g., Goodman, 1946), its infrequency in chil-
dren is noteworthy, given that adult research has identified such preju-
diced discourse as an important contributor to the formulation and dif-
fusion of ethnic prejudice (e.g., Greenberg, Kirkland, & Pyszczynski,
1988; W. P. Robinson, 1995; Simon & Greenberg, 1996).
Fourth, consistent with W. P. Robinson’s (1972) research, several
researchers have pointed to the notable similarity in the language,
misconceptions, and inconsistencies expressed by parents and their
children in making more affectively negative statements toward some
minority groups rather than others (e.g., Radke-Yarrow et al., 1952).
Significantly, however, the findings also indicated that young children
frequently explicitly sourced their statements to their parents (e.g.,
Horowitz & Horowitz, 1938; Porter, 1971; Radke et al., 1949). For exam-
ple, Horowitz and Horowitz (1938, p. 333) provided the following
examples:
Nesdale / LANGUAGE AND ETHNIC PREJUDICE 101

(1st grade girl) “Mamma tells me not to play with black children, keep
away from them, Mamma tells me, she told me not to play with them.
Black. (Why not?) Mother don’t want me to.”
(1st grade boy) “Black, cause they’re niggers. They say not to go over
there and play with them. (Do you go?) Yes’m. (What do they say?) They
say I’m white and they’re black. (What do your folks say?) Not to go over
there and play.”
(2nd grade girl) “Colored children. Mother doesn’t want me to play with
colored children, cause they colored men. Might have pneumonia if you
play with them. I play with colored children sometimes but mamma
whips me.”

It is important, also, that research has shown that when their child’s
response was revealed to them, the typical parental response was to
deny any responsibility for it (e.g., Horowitz & Horowitz, 1938; Porter,
1971; Radke-Yarrow et al., 1952).
Fifth, a number of studies have reported a lack of correspondence
between young children’s play preferences and their verbal attitudes,
ethnic preferences, and trait attributions (e.g., Boulton & Smith, 1993;
Fishbein & Imai, 1993; Horowitz & Horowitz, 1938). As noted earlier,
racial cleavage tends not to occur until later in middle childhood (e.g.,
Brand et al., 1974; Proshansky, 1966; see also Lambert & Taguchi,
1956). Furthermore, although there are few observational studies of
young children’s actual play behavior in multiracial settings, there is
little evidence of a systematic relationship between play partner pref-
erences and race (e.g., Fishbein & Imai, 1993; Goodman, 1946), with
one notable exception. Finkelstein and Haskins (1983) reported that
5-year-old White and Black children revealed clear preferences for
same-color peers when they entered kindergarten and that this ten-
dency increased during the ensuing year. Significantly, however,
although the authors attributed this pattern to a lack of interracial
play experience during the preschool years, which was apparently
strengthened during the subsequent year, neither the White nor the
Black children behaved differently toward other-color peers than
toward the same-color peers. Both the White and Black children char-
acteristically engaged in talk and revealed little aggression toward
both White and Black children. There was no evidence that the content
or tone of either their between-race talk or behavior was related to
their play preferences.
Sixth, although dominant group children as young as 5 years incor-
porated trait-like terms or implied dispositions (e.g., “bad,” “steal,”
“dirty,” “not pretty”) in their verbal descriptions of minority group chil-
dren (e.g., Horowitz & Horowitz, 1938; Porter, 1971; Radke-Yarrow et al.,
1952), there was little sense that such terms had trait connotations for
them and/or that they were part of a set of beliefs that were shared by
their group (i.e., a stereotype). In other words, there was scant evidence
that the designated behaviors were perceived to reflect stable charac-
teristics of members of the particular outgroup that could be expected
102 JOURNAL OF LANGUAGE AND SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY / March/June 2001

to be revealed on other occasions. Consistent with this is research indi-

cating that children tend not to utilize dispositional attributions in
describing other children’s behavior until after 7 or 8 years of age
(Livesley & Bromley, 1973; Peevers & Secord, 1973), although they can
make some dispositional attributions on some be- haviors in relation to
specific children at an earlier age (e.g., Berndt & Heller, 1985).
Although there have been surprisingly few studies that have sought
to assess children’s ethnic stereotypes (leaving aside the trait attribu-
tion technique that is commonly considered to assess ethnic attitudes;
A. R. Nesdale, in press), the available findings are consistent with the
preceding analysis. For example, Blake and Dennis (1943) used D. Katz
and Braly’s (1933) technique to assess the stereotypes of 9- to
16-year-old children concerning Whites and Blacks. They found that
even at 9 years, there was agreement on only 5 traits concerning
Blacks and that the extent of agreement only ranged from 40% to 59%
on these traits. In contrast, by 16 years, 14 traits had more than 70% to
100% agreement, the stereotype was essentially adult-like, and it
included only 3 of the traits endorsed by the youngest children. A simi-
lar pattern of findings has been reported by A. R. Nesdale (1987) con-
cerning the stereotypes of Italian- and Vietnamese-Australians held by
10- and 12-year-old Anglo-Australian children and university students.
In sum, the evidence of interview studies reveals that children as
young as 5 years may acquire adult-like racist expressions about mem-
bers of ethnic outgroups. Furthermore, the evidence suggests that par-
ents and peers are the main sources of children’s acquisitions of such
language. However, the evidence also suggests that although young
children are capable of expressing racist language, it is typically not
reflective of their own intergroup attitudes, at least in those younger
than 8 or 9 years.
Although the preceding analysis certainly adds to our understand-
ing of the development of ethnic prejudice in children, there is little
doubt that considerably more research addressing the role of language
in children’s prejudice is needed. One reason concerns the lack of
contemporaneity of most of the extant research. In short, most of the
research that has examined children’s language in intergroup contexts
was carried out in the 1940s to 1960s, a period when the relationship
between Whites and Blacks in the United States and between the dom-
inant and minority groups in other western countries was considerably
different. Status differentials in employment, material possessions,
and interpersonal relationships were more clearly delineated, and
overt prejudice and discrimination toward minority group members
were more frequent and accepted. With the passage of time, however,
there has been a significant reduction in the status differentials,
although the situation concerning prejudice is somewhat more ambig-
uous. Thus, whereas there have been reports that ethnic prejudice in
adults has declined, there is an emerging view that it may simply be
Nesdale / LANGUAGE AND ETHNIC PREJUDICE 103

being expressed more subtly and in new disguises (e.g., Duckitt, 1991;
Freriks, 1990; Pettigrew & Meertens, 1995). The implication of the pre-
ceding changes is that new research is needed that assesses children’s
language in intergroup contexts as they increase in age and compares
the overlap in their language production with that of their parents and
peers.
In addition, it is noteworthy that there is now evidence from more
implicit measures that do not allow the intentional inhibition of preju-
dice, such as the implicit association test (e.g., Greenwald, McGhee, &
Schwartz, 1998) and the linguistic intergroup bias paradigm (Maass &
Arcuri, 1996), that intergroup language effects can occur without the
conscious awareness of the speaker-hearer. Because this research has
only been carried out to date with adults, assessment of the develop-
ment of these processes in children would also be timely and would con-
tribute further to our understanding of the social transmission and
communication of ethnic prejudice.
A further area of potentially important research concerns the
nature of interactions between children who are members of the major-
ity versus minority groups. A substantial body of research has now con-
firmed the central proposition of communication accommodation the-
ory (Giles, 1973; Giles, Mulac, Bradac, & Johnson, 1987) that
individuals use linguistic, paralinguistic, and nonverbal behaviors
strategically to achieve a desired social distance (i.e., convergence,
divergence, or complementarity) between self and interacting partners
(for reviews, see Gallois, Giles, Jones, Cargile, & Ota, 1995; Shepard,
Giles, & Le Poire, in press). Again, however, no research has examined
when such accommodative behaviors emerge in children who are
involved in intercultural communication and what considerations con-
tribute to their emergence.
The above comprise but a few examples of the range of potential
research issues that might be addressed by researchers in relation to
children’s language in intergroup contexts. The point to emphasize,
however, is that research activity in this area is not only potentially
extremely fruitful, but it is also likely to be especially valuable in
enhancing our understanding of the development and expression of
children’s ethnic prejudice.

CONCLUSIONS

The present analysis indicates that studies which have assessed the
language used by children in intergroup contexts have yielded impor-
tant findings that add considerably to our understanding of the nature
of the acquisition of children’s ethnic prejudice, as well as the role
played by language in this process. The findings from these studies,
together with those from studies using other methods (e.g., ethnic
104 JOURNAL OF LANGUAGE AND SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY / March/June 2001

preference, trait attribution), suggest that children’s ethnic awareness

begins to emerge at roughly 3 years, particularly among those who
reside in multiracial communities, and that ethnic self-identification
appears shortly thereafter. The particular significance of the latter
acquisition is that it apparently prompts children’s preference for their
ingroup, especially among those who are members of the dominant cul-
tural group. The evidence suggests that ingroup preference is charac-
teristic of most children by 5 or 6 years of age and that it may increase,
remain stable, or decrease during the middle childhood years. Con-
trary to Aboud’s (1988) position, the findings provide little support for
the claim that most, if not all, children have ethnic prejudice by 7 years
of age.
Despite the lack of evidence favoring the universal appearance of
ethnic prejudice in young children, the findings reveal that the acquisi-
tion of ingroup preference in dominant group children may neverthe-
less be accompanied by the appearance of adult-like verbal expressions
of negative affect toward ethnic outgroups. Furthermore, there are
good grounds for supposing that parents, and then peers, are the main
sources of these expressions (compare with Aboud & Doyle, 1996a,
1996b).
However, the evidence further suggests that whereas children (from
as young as 5 years) may increasingly come to acquire the prevailing
“racial facts” concerning the ethnic groups in their community, and
that they will use them when they are deemed to be appropriate to the
situation (e.g., when ethnicity is flagged to be a relevant consideration
by an adult), they are not held as the child’s own. Apparently, at least
up to 9 or 10 years of age, children may have the “verbal fluency” but
not the dislike or hatred, nor the conceptual grasp of ethnic labels and
stereotypes that are present in those children in whom ethnic preju-
dice is fully realized at this age or beyond (Proshansky, 1966). In this
sense, the situation of young children appears to be somewhat analo-
gous to adults who know a particular racial stereotype but do not hold
it as their own (e.g., Devine, 1989).
One implication of the preceding discussion is that if and when eth-
nic prejudice ultimately appears in children, it is not solely dependent
on either their perceptual-cognitive abilities (Aboud, 1988) or their
proximity to others (e.g., parents, peers) who hold and express prejudi-
cial attitudes (Allport, 1954; Horowitz & Horowitz, 1938). As a consid-
erable amount of developmental research has made clear, children are
active participants in seeking to understand and control both their cog-
nitive and social worlds (Durkin, 1995). Thus, it would be incorrect to
assume that children’s social attitudes would be based purely on their
cognitions or that children should simply be regarded as empty con-
tainers into which prevailing societal prejudices are poured. Instead,
recent theory and research suggest that the emergence of children’s
ethnic attitudes is determined much more by social motivational
Nesdale / LANGUAGE AND ETHNIC PREJUDICE 105

considerations and, in particular, by the identification of children with

others (e.g., parents and/or peers) who hold ethnic prejudice as a value
(e.g., Milner, 1996; A. R. Nesdale, 1999a, in press; A. R. Nesdale &
Flesser, in press; Vaughan, 1987). The implication here is that children
may have similar ethnic attitudes to those of their prejudiced or
unprejudiced parents, but that similarity is not guaranteed (e.g.,
Pushkin, as cited in Davey, 1983). Furthermore, it is likely that the
transition from ethnic preference to ethnic prejudice in children may
also be dependent on their perception of threat or conflict from an eth-
nic outgroup, just as appears to be the case with adults (e.g., A. R.
Nesdale, 1999a, 1999b; A. R. Nesdale & Flesser, in press).
Another important implication concerns the relevance of language
to the emergence, perpetuation, and transmission of ethnic prejudice
in children. Although the present analysis suggests that young chil-
dren’s ability to ape the expressions of adults does not have a direct
causal impact on their acquisition of matching ethnic attitudes, it is
clear that children as young as 5 may at least have acquired a lexicon of
racist language that could be put to use, should they decide to identify
with others who denigrate particular ethnic outgroups. In this sense,
rather than instigating prejudice, there is a stronger case for arguing
that racist language serves to enhance racial divisions in those chil-
dren and adults who are receptive to such attitudes through their iden-
tification with others who share such views.
One final implication concerns the relevance of the present analysis
for the inhibition and minimization of the development of ethnic preju-
dice in children. Although a detailed consideration of this crucially
important issue is beyond the scope of this article, the preceding dis-
cussion suggests several considerations that should be central to such
a task. For example, there is a clear need to recognize and address chil-
dren’s tendencies toward categorizing themselves and others into
ingroup versus outgroup(s), based on the ethnicity category. In recogni-
tion of this tendency, emphasis needs to be placed, on one hand, on the
importance of children responding to the individual qualities of people
rather than their group-based attributes (i.e., decategorization), and, on
the other hand, on emphasizing alternative, socially accepted categori-
zations that do not depend on ethnicity (i.e., recategorization).
Complementing the emphasis on modifying children’s tendencies
toward ethnicity-based categorization and ingroup preference, there is
a need to challenge the “racial facts” that children can acquire from as
young as 5 years. Peter Robinson (1995) and others (e.g., Greenberg et al.,
1988; Simon & Greenberg, 1996) have given due recognition to the
impact of such language in promoting and perpetuating racial divi-
sions in adults. On this basis, even though young children typically do
not “own” such verbal expressions, the unfairness, hurtfulness, and
unacceptability of racist language must be made clear to them. Clearly,
this is not a simple task, especially when the initial source of racist
106 JOURNAL OF LANGUAGE AND SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY / March/June 2001

language is in the home. At the least, this implies that the

minimization approaches noted above need to be systematically insti-
tuted when the child commences formal schooling. Given the preva-
lence of prejudice and discrimination in the wider society, the impor-
tance of attempting to minimize these behaviors in children cannot be
overemphasized.

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