Nipping prejudices and stereotypes

Jan 27, 2010 Editorial

As the 2011 general elections draw ever closer, the debate about our voting proclivities – historically centered on race and ethnicity – is once again taking centre stage. Just trawl through our daily letter pages in case there exist any doubts.
While all of us uniformly bemoan this tendency, there has not been any sustained effort to counteract some of the more insidious effects that spring from the universal imperative to construct identity based on differences – not only in voting. While there is nothing intrinsically wrong in asserting one’s identity, there is great danger when others from other groups are subjected to prejudices based on negative stereotypes.
Studies show that physical differences are detected by children from a very early age and they develop stereotypes towards others that are different, mainly from cues given off by parents and others in their family circle.
It’s no use parents protesting that they do not talk about “such things” around their children – the cues are not only verbal but run the entire behavioural gamut of human responses. A smirk, a frown or a smile can be enough to send a very clear message.
While there is much that can be said about how prejudices and stereotypes of others who are simply different can be fought in the home, today we would like to focus on an institution where official intervention can be implemented very early in the day to nip the deleterious effects in the bud: our schools.
Education is supposed to prepare our children “for life” and we cannot think of any knowledge that is more important for national development at this time than removing (or at least reducing) the fetters of prejudices that are inchoate in the next generation. And who knows, maybe we adults may learn a thing or two about resolving our political and other social dilemmas.
Studies in the US, where they have spent much time and effort (not to mention dollars) to address the racial prejudicial bugbear, have suggested that educators may find it best to focus on four areas. Firstly there is the proposition that in addition to multiracial/multicultural curricula, there must be explicit anti-racist modules that directly attack the foundations of prejudices and stereotypes. In Guyana, as in the US, for quite a while our educators have made efforts to break racial/ethnic stereotypes by introducing positive role models and contributions of all our “six peoples” within “multicultural” curricula.
While more needs to be done in this regard (especially about Amerindians that are continued to be portrayed as if they are stuck in a time warp) the studies demonstrate conclusively that the direct anti-racist/anti bias interventions have proven most effective. What this means is that we should not just teach our children about great Africans, Indians, Amerindians etc. but about past discriminations and prejudices on their groups and their possible traces in the present.
The Ministry of Education should look into this proposal immediately.
Secondly, the moral education that is presently taught in our schools to develop the character of our children must be deepened. While it has been shown that individuals that have higher levels of moral development display lower levels of bias and prejudice, tying the values directly to living questions of behaviour forces more effective real-time changes.
We cannot simply impart a list of values such as “thrift’, “honesty”, “truthfulness”, “equality” etc. but must tie them directly to present practices.
Thirdly, our schools have to consciously promote greater cross-group contacts. It is not enough to claim that our schools have children of all ethnicities. Cooperative learning strategies that involve mixing students into ethnically/racially diverse small groups demand face-to-face contacts and interdependence. The confluence of group and individual success encourages not only cooperation but friendships across old divides.
Finally, teachers themselves must be trained to overcome their own prejudices and understand the cultures of their diverse student bodies. Intelligence is random and the same across all human groups. Children by and large perform to expectations. Teachers must be willing to demonstrate in their practice that they have the same expectations of success for all students.

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