Recently your friends' 8-year-old daughter has made prejudiced comments about members of other racial groups. Your friends don't find this behavior acceptable and they want to reduce their daughter's prejudice

Question

What advice can you give your friends?
What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

A good answer will be similar to the following:
Prejudice is a negative view of others based on their membership in specific group. Prejudice is often high in preschool and kindergarten children who attribute positive traits to members of their own group and negative traits to members of other groups. Prejudice usually declines during the elementary-school years as children begin to understand that people in social groups are heterogeneous. However, prejudice might increase as children reach adolescence. One way of reducing prejudice is to encourage friendly and constructive contacts between children from different groups. Intergroup contact reduces prejudice when the participating groups of children are equal in status and when the contact between groups involves pursuing common goals and encourages children to think of groups as part of a larger, common group. It also reduces prejudice when parents and teachers support the goal of reducing prejudice. For example, a teacher can give an assignment that requires children from different groups to work together toward a common goal. Adults also can have children role play being victims of prejudice and discrimination to increase their awareness and understanding of prejudice. From these types of experiences, children and adolescents discover for themselves that a person's membership in a social group tells us very little about the person.