Ethnic Awareness, Self-identification, and Attitudes Toward Ingroup and Outgroup in Italian, Chinese and African Pupils

This study explored ethnic awareness, self-identification, and ethnic attitudes in 104 Italian, Chinese, and African pupils aged 4- 5, attending to ethnically homogeneous and heterogeneous kindergarten schools. Hypotheses: Pupils will be able to show ethnic awareness and self-identification, and pupils attending heterogeneous schools will express positive attitudes toward outgroup more than the others according to the “contact hypothesis” (Sagone, 2003). Measures: Clark & Clark's Doll Paradigm and rewards allocation tasks were used.Resultsall pupils correctly identified themselves with the ethnic group which they belong to and recognized the ethnicity of the dolls; in addition, Chinese and White Italian pupils attending to homogeneous schools showed ingroup favoritism more than the other pupils.