Pre-Adult Development Of Political Tolerance By Emily Hardy
Tolerance, inclusion, diversity; the main topics of our creative project that will form an illustrated children’s book. Written by Emily Hardy, Cindy Kim, Karina Corral-Rodriguez and myself with illustrations done by Emily and publishing done by Shutterfly. The target audience is elementary kids approximately 6 to 10 years old. We chose this age because it’s the age that children are more receptive towards others people attitudes about themselves and others. We are hoping to have the storyboard drawn by week 6-7 and submitted to Shutterfly by week 8. There are many definitions for inclusion especially when dealing with children and school. Our take on the word however is the non-exclusion of a child or classmate due to their differences. We
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are using tolerance as an umbrella term to teach children that even though they look different they aren’t different from you or I. According to Bandura’s Cognitive social learning theory; “children are active information processors who are constantly observing the environment around them. They think about the associations between behaviors and it’s consequences. From here, children store the information until they are ready to use it.” What is this behavior the children are observing? They are observing how we treat one another. How their mother treats the immigrant neighbors or how their teacher treats the child who is a tad bit slower then the rest. They then see that these adults face no repercussions thus this must be okay. Furthermore, at this age children are developing relational self worth. Where they judge themselves based on other people’s perceptions of themselves. This can lead a child to have low self worth but low self-esteem, depression and other problems that can follow them through their development. It is easier to teach a child at a young age to be tolerant and to be accepting of others then try to reverse the damage it does in the future. To help us with our project I have come across a few empirical articles, children’s book, and teaching curriculum that can help us in determining the best way to approach children about the subject we have chosen. In the empirical article “Pre-adult Development of Political Tolerance” written by Diana Owens and Jack Dennis gives us a look at how much left wing parties would be tolerated in the community.
They took a group of children ages 10 to 17 and compared them to their parents to see who is more tolerant of Communists and Racist running out in the open whether as a teacher, political party candidate, or a speaker at a school or community function. “Concept of political tolerance, broadly construed, represents the tendency of individuals to allow political expression by groups who beliefs and demands they oppose.”[Owen & Dennis 548] Some previously arguments state that education attainment and a tendency towards tolerance isn’t a direct link, instead that education works in conjunction to improve tolerance. Furthermore parental influence and communication amongst others improves the environment for learning about tolerance. For the study they took the group and interview participants 3 times in a year during the 19080 presidential election. What they concluded was that the period before adulthood is a sensitive time because individuals become increasingly aware of issues and of dissent/opposition. As they become more exposed, their attitude towards tolerance changes. This information is exposed to them via education and the higher your socioeconomic class is the better an education you can possibly get. Additionally, in families where communication about politics amongst each …show more content…
ether are frequent and allow the children to explore their own opinions are likely to exhibit greater tolerance towards adults. The article is about political tolerance and our topic is inclusion and more of religious and cultural tolerance in the school. However, it does underline how tolerance is learned or come to understand by children and how it is constantly changing from one generation to the next. The information we can use to support our project is that education does influence tolerance by introducing new cultures, views, and oppositions to individuals. With that information they can draw their own conclusions and growing up in an environment that embraces opinions makes the idea of tolerance even stronger Can anything negative come from teaching children about oppression the African American people face through out history to elementary age children? In the article “Consequence of Learning About Historical Racism Among European American and African American children,” three researchers studied the two racial groups in separate studies. Each racial group had a control group that was taught history lesson in which information about the racism experienced by individuals was omitted while the experimental was taught the exact same lesson with the information included. Previous studies suggest that conflicting hypothesis about the effect it would have on African Americans youths. Many parents talk to their children about the racism and prejudice they will face growing up. Some say racism awareness are associated with positive outcomes while others report that the perception of racial discrimination can be linked to depression. In contrast to Caucasian parents avoid discussing the concept of racism and believe that it irrelevant and possibly even harmful even though there has been very little research to that effect. This study measured how African Americans and Caucasians respond to learning about racism cognitively and affectively. Results said that children who received lessons with racism had more positive attitudes about African American children then the ones who had the control lessons furthermore they states that the lessons “led them to endorse counter stereotypic views more often” then those of the control. In addition they expressed racial fairness as a value more often. When it came to evaluate the results for the African American there was very little difference between the two, which was concluded that they already knew about racism. Concluding that learning about racism will decrease children’s perception about African Americans and come to an understanding of racial fairness may reduce their racial prejudices. Thus racism education is likely to promote prejudice reduction in European American children.
This study can be used as direct support for the reasoning behind the topic of our project.
We want to educate children on the prejudice that face other children and people around them and we have data that proves not only are they unaware that it may exists but by becoming aware they tolerance increased and the prejudice
decreases.
The last is a teaching curriculum implemented in a preschool and elementary school classroom involving art. “Art involved cognitive and metacognitive function thus motivation children to reflect on how they thing and learn….of their self” [Zakin 5] By a series of activities that were made to explore their skin color by hand stamping and self portraits that got the children interested in discussing diversity and relating differences in terms of skin colors to other items of themselves like clothing. They looked past the skin and understood that they were more then just that they were people and they were friends. The curriculum claims that when children are allowed to explore and comment on the diversity of each other they are less likely to internalize the negative messages of difference as they grow older. The younger a child is, the easier it is to teach tolerance and social justice because they have the capacity of getting along with others in a natural play environment.
I am sure we (my group) all have a different reason on why we chose this topic. My reason is that in the past year or so, there has been a lot of hate filled rhetoric in the media, and lets face it, the media is all around us so how can we escape it? In today’s society it is now acceptable to be intolerant of another race and/or religion. As much progress as we made through the years with equal rights with certain minority groups, we have taken a few steps back with others. Children are our future, so what will the future be like if they grow up hearing that this group of people are terrorists based on what they wear or this group of people are less them then based on the color of their skin, furthermore because Sara has two daddies you can no longer be friends? Starting from an early age, we should teach them that everyone is equal and it is what is on the inside that matters. Everyone may look different but it doesn’t mean we should treat them any differently. Sitting down talking to a child may not be the best way to reach them. However through books, skits, music videos, and activities could make a lasting impact where they don’t see what’s on the outside and they judge a person on their character not their identity.
are using tolerance as an umbrella term to teach children that even though they look different they aren’t different from you or I. According to Bandura’s Cognitive social learning theory; “children are active information processors who are constantly observing the environment around them. They think about the associations between behaviors and it’s consequences. From here, children store the information until they are ready to use it.” What is this behavior the children are observing? They are observing how we treat one another. How their mother treats the immigrant neighbors or how their teacher treats the child who is a tad bit slower then the rest. They then see that these adults face no repercussions thus this must be okay. Furthermore, at this age children are developing relational self worth. Where they judge themselves based on other people’s perceptions of themselves. This can lead a child to have low self worth but low self-esteem, depression and other problems that can follow them through their development. It is easier to teach a child at a young age to be tolerant and to be accepting of others then try to reverse the damage it does in the future. To help us with our project I have come across a few empirical articles, children’s book, and teaching curriculum that can help us in determining the best way to approach children about the subject we have chosen. In the empirical article “Pre-adult Development of Political Tolerance” written by Diana Owens and Jack Dennis gives us a look at how much left wing parties would be tolerated in the community.
They took a group of children ages 10 to 17 and compared them to their parents to see who is more tolerant of Communists and Racist running out in the open whether as a teacher, political party candidate, or a speaker at a school or community function. “Concept of political tolerance, broadly construed, represents the tendency of individuals to allow political expression by groups who beliefs and demands they oppose.”[Owen & Dennis 548] Some previously arguments state that education attainment and a tendency towards tolerance isn’t a direct link, instead that education works in conjunction to improve tolerance. Furthermore parental influence and communication amongst others improves the environment for learning about tolerance. For the study they took the group and interview participants 3 times in a year during the 19080 presidential election. What they concluded was that the period before adulthood is a sensitive time because individuals become increasingly aware of issues and of dissent/opposition. As they become more exposed, their attitude towards tolerance changes. This information is exposed to them via education and the higher your socioeconomic class is the better an education you can possibly get. Additionally, in families where communication about politics amongst each …show more content…
ether are frequent and allow the children to explore their own opinions are likely to exhibit greater tolerance towards adults. The article is about political tolerance and our topic is inclusion and more of religious and cultural tolerance in the school. However, it does underline how tolerance is learned or come to understand by children and how it is constantly changing from one generation to the next. The information we can use to support our project is that education does influence tolerance by introducing new cultures, views, and oppositions to individuals. With that information they can draw their own conclusions and growing up in an environment that embraces opinions makes the idea of tolerance even stronger Can anything negative come from teaching children about oppression the African American people face through out history to elementary age children? In the article “Consequence of Learning About Historical Racism Among European American and African American children,” three researchers studied the two racial groups in separate studies. Each racial group had a control group that was taught history lesson in which information about the racism experienced by individuals was omitted while the experimental was taught the exact same lesson with the information included. Previous studies suggest that conflicting hypothesis about the effect it would have on African Americans youths. Many parents talk to their children about the racism and prejudice they will face growing up. Some say racism awareness are associated with positive outcomes while others report that the perception of racial discrimination can be linked to depression. In contrast to Caucasian parents avoid discussing the concept of racism and believe that it irrelevant and possibly even harmful even though there has been very little research to that effect. This study measured how African Americans and Caucasians respond to learning about racism cognitively and affectively. Results said that children who received lessons with racism had more positive attitudes about African American children then the ones who had the control lessons furthermore they states that the lessons “led them to endorse counter stereotypic views more often” then those of the control. In addition they expressed racial fairness as a value more often. When it came to evaluate the results for the African American there was very little difference between the two, which was concluded that they already knew about racism. Concluding that learning about racism will decrease children’s perception about African Americans and come to an understanding of racial fairness may reduce their racial prejudices. Thus racism education is likely to promote prejudice reduction in European American children.
This study can be used as direct support for the reasoning behind the topic of our project.
We want to educate children on the prejudice that face other children and people around them and we have data that proves not only are they unaware that it may exists but by becoming aware they tolerance increased and the prejudice
decreases.
The last is a teaching curriculum implemented in a preschool and elementary school classroom involving art. “Art involved cognitive and metacognitive function thus motivation children to reflect on how they thing and learn….of their self” [Zakin 5] By a series of activities that were made to explore their skin color by hand stamping and self portraits that got the children interested in discussing diversity and relating differences in terms of skin colors to other items of themselves like clothing. They looked past the skin and understood that they were more then just that they were people and they were friends. The curriculum claims that when children are allowed to explore and comment on the diversity of each other they are less likely to internalize the negative messages of difference as they grow older. The younger a child is, the easier it is to teach tolerance and social justice because they have the capacity of getting along with others in a natural play environment.
I am sure we (my group) all have a different reason on why we chose this topic. My reason is that in the past year or so, there has been a lot of hate filled rhetoric in the media, and lets face it, the media is all around us so how can we escape it? In today’s society it is now acceptable to be intolerant of another race and/or religion. As much progress as we made through the years with equal rights with certain minority groups, we have taken a few steps back with others. Children are our future, so what will the future be like if they grow up hearing that this group of people are terrorists based on what they wear or this group of people are less them then based on the color of their skin, furthermore because Sara has two daddies you can no longer be friends? Starting from an early age, we should teach them that everyone is equal and it is what is on the inside that matters. Everyone may look different but it doesn’t mean we should treat them any differently. Sitting down talking to a child may not be the best way to reach them. However through books, skits, music videos, and activities could make a lasting impact where they don’t see what’s on the outside and they judge a person on their character not their identity.