Can music reduce anti-dark-skin prejudice? A test of a cross-cultural musical education programme

Abstract

The study examined the impact of a cross-cultural musical programme on young Portuguese adolescents' anti-dark-skin prejudice. A sample of 229 sixth-grade pupils who attended public schools in the area of Lisbon, Portugal, were presented with the Implicit Association Test (IAT) -an instrument that measures the strength with which dark-skinned faces or light-skinned faces are associated with attributes that can be considered as negative or positive, and with a test measuring explicit anti-dark-skin prejudice. Half of the pupils were subsequently exposed, at school, to a 6-month musical programme that included Cape Verdean songs and Portuguese songs. The other half was exposed to the usual programme. Measures taken at the end of the programmes showed a reduction in anti-dark-skin prejudice, either implicit or explicit, among pupils in the experimental group and no reduction among pupils in the control group. Measures taken 3 months later and 2 years later showed that the impact of the experimental programme was enduring.

A Long‐Term Effect of Perceptual Individuation Training on Reducing Implicit Racial Bias in Preschool Children

“…Second, it has been suggested that to reduce racial bias effectively, one of the best approaches is to engage individuals in immersive and prolonged interaction with other-race individuals (Neto, da Conceic ßao Pinto, & Mullet, 2016;Pettigrew & Tropp, 2006;Rudman, Ashmore, & Gary, 2001;Shook & Fazio, 2008). However, it might not be possible for young children to have such opportunities, especially for those living in homogeneous racial settings (e.g., in most parts of Asia and Africa, and some parts of the United States, that have no or very few other-race individuals).…”

Childhood Experiences and Intergroup Biases among Children

“…A similar study, conducted with young White U.S. children, also found that two 45‐minute sessions of pro‐diversity curricula (e.g., race‐related stories, discussion, and art) a week over the course of 8 weeks failed to reduce racial biases (Best, Smith, Graves, & Williams, ). In contrast, the one study to examine this type of curriculum in middle childhood indicated that providing education on the music and culture of racial outgroup members (a total of twenty 90‐minute sessions over the course of 6 months) produced a long‐lasting (more than 2 years) reduction in implicit and explicit skin tone bias (favoring light skin) among Portuguese children (Neto, da Conceiçao Pinto, & Mullet, ).…”

Reducing Implicit Racial Preferences: II. Intervention Effectiveness Across Time

“…Interventions on children could be more effective because implicit preferences are more sensitive to experiences at younger ages (i.e., a critical period) or because adults' associations are more stable since they have accumulated more experiences related to an association over a lifetime. We are aware of only four studies that have experimentally examined change in children's implicit preferences to test these questions (Gonzalez, Steele, & Baron, 2016;Neto, et al, 2015;Vezzali et al, 2011;Xiao et al, 2014). As one example, Neto and colleagues' (2015) tested an education program where sixth-graders learned about music and culture from Cape Verde over the course of six months.…”