Focus: The Promotion of Tolerance and the Prevention of Prejudice in Youth

Issues: Children & Youth; Education; Tolerance

Region: North America

Dr. Selman's research focuses on what can be learned about the origins of tolerance and prejudice in young children through research on how students in elementary schools develop and express their awareness of these attitudes as they actively participate in literacy practices designed to promote the former and prevent the latter. Reciprocally he focuses on how to provide the findings directly to practitioners, in this case, elementary grade teachers, and explores how to study the uses teachers make of the information his team provides.

To respond to the first question, Dr. Selman focuses on the validation of methods for the assessment of children's developing awareness of the roots of both tolerance and prejudice by examining how children at different ages (K-5th grade), and from different backgrounds, make meaning of the multicultural children's literature focused on social justice themes. This will afford Dr. Selman's team the opportunity to study both the developmental antecedents (e.g., capacity for perspective coordination and conflict resolution skills) and cultural foundations (e.g. orientations of children from one background to children from different backgrounds) that influence children's inter-group relationships.

The second question focuses on the process by which teachers and researchers together can inform and change practice, using the knowledge the researcher gives back. The emphasis of this aspect of the initiative is on the translational process between research and practice, and it is designed to insure that researchers return to the source of their inspiration. Through a series of professional development "partnership workshops" for researchers and teachers alike, Dr. Selman's team will take what they have learned in the research on children's meaning making and use it to improve the practice of promoting children's social awareness, at the same time studying .the dynamics in the workshops themselves.

External Links:
- Research on the Promotion of Tolerance and the Prevention of Prejudice in Youth
- Robert L. Selman Profile

Downloads:
- Social Policy Report - (Adobe .pdf)
- Practice Embedded Researcher Tales - (Adobe .pdf)