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Preventing radicalization via early prejudice prevention

Laura Sterba; Andreas Beelmann; University of Jena

Prejudice and negative intergroup attitudes and behaviour are prominent risk factors and the psychological basis of discrimination, hate crimes and radicalization among young people. Based on developmental considerations on prejudice development, we developed a 16-session program for primary school children to promote interpersonal tolerance and intergroup relations (PARTS). This paper report results of the five-year long-term outcomes of this program on intergroup attitudes and radicalization measures. We tested long-term results within a randomized longitudinal-experimental design applied in Grade 3 and 4 in primary schools in Thuringia/Germany. The program consists of lesson on intercultural competences, extent contact stories and the promotion of individual social competencies such as multiple classification skills, perspective taking, and problem solving. Long-term effects were measured about five years after the termination of the program at age 15 and 16. Participants were 321 young adolescents (173 within the intervention and 148 within an untreated control group). Analyses yielded several significant effects on prejudice and intergroup relations (e.g., cognitive, emotional, and behavioral prejudice, interpersonal tolerance) and radicalization measures (e.g., national-authoritarian attitudes, contact to right-wing materials and groups). Effects were small to medium size, but mostly significant except for emotional prejudice measures (intergroup anxiety). The results showed that early developmental prevention can last to long-term effects on prejudice development and also on more distal consequence like political radicalization of young people.

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