In the shoes of others

If prejudices and discriminatory behaviors against minorities are learned, at least in part, as children through school and family socialization processes, it is precisely at that age that action must be taken to promote behaviors oriented towards inclusiveness. A recent study published in the scientific journal PNAS presents the results that a diversity education intervention conducted in some Israeli elementary schools had on prejudice against minorities.

The intervention was aimed at familiarizing Jewish Israeli elementary school students with different social groups in Israeli society and reducing their prejudice towards minorities. The program ran for a month and was based on the Israeli TV series You Can't Ask That, a Jewish adaptation of an Australian show. Each episode of the series portrays children from different social groups who respond with ease and humor to questions from the audience on some fundamental aspects of relationships between groups; questions that children would not ask so easily and directly to members of a (social/ethnic) group other than their own. Furthermore, many of the topics addressed in the TV series are considered taboo in Israeli society; the TV series attempts to “deconstruct” these themes in order to promote better understanding between the groups.

The educational program mostly focused on three episodes of the TV series portraying Arab, visually impaired and immigrant children. After watching these episodes, elementary school students participated in a series of guided class discussions, aimed at constructively addressing the most sensitive issues regarding group relationships, showing the similarities between different groups together with the differences often present in the within the group itself and suggesting the importance of taking on the perspectives of others.

More specifically, some activities were aimed at stimulating reflections on how the participants in the show who belonged to another group often had different and sometimes contradictory positions on a given social or political issue. The awareness that members of another group also have different ideas internally can lead one to think that the other group is not ultimately homogeneous. This, in turn, can reduce bias.

Other activities were aimed at emphasizing elements of similarity between different groups, emphasizing that despite differences, different groups often share similar motivations, emotions and feelings in relation to potentially conflicting issues.
Indeed, awareness of these similarities can improve attitudes towards minorities. Finally, the debate held after each episode of the TV series would encourage students to discuss the experiences of discrimination and inequality described in the show, encouraging students to put themselves in the shoes of others. By raising awareness of inequality and discrimination, as well as students' ability to develop empathy in relationships between different groups, the intervention then aimed to reduce their prejudice towards various minority groups.

What were the effects of this educational intervention?
Compared to those not selected to participate in this initiative (control group), the students exposed to the training showed, at the end of the programme, more positive emotions towards people belonging to a different social/ethnic group than their own. Additionally, the intervention increased students' intentions to connect with people from the other group, their support for diversity, and perceptions of similarity to the other group.

Finally, the program seems to have had very significant effects on students' willingness to take the perspective of the other "different" from themselves, suggesting that its effectiveness in reducing prejudice lies in having stimulated students to realize how important it is to take the perspective of the other, especially in contexts of interaction between different groups that can lead to conflicts.

Pieluigi Conzo
NP May 2023