Unfair Discrimination: teaching the principles to children of primary school age

Abstract

This paper describes an initiative to promote social justice in two groups of primary aged children. The initiative was concerned with the extent to which first‐ and third‐year juniors can apply principles of unfair discrimination to issues of gender, ‘race’ and social class having been taught the principles in contexts unrelated to structural inequality. The study provides evidence consistent with the claim that children between the ages of seven and 11 can learn to recognise certain manifestations of unfair discrimination against oppressed groups. The data further suggest that children in this age group can learn to recognise such discrimination on the basis of principles acquired in contexts that make no reference to oppressed groups. It is argued that the data are sufficiently encouraging to warrant a replication of the study on a larger scale.