News

New clues to understanding racial tolerance

Media Release, Monday 23 September 2002

A University of Melbourne study has surprised researchers by revealing Australians become less racially tolerant as we get older.

The study is providing insight into alternative pathways to the development of tolerance and a better understanding of how to achieve a more harmonious society.

One of the more unusual findings, and of concern to the researchers, was a distinct decline in racial tolerance in boys when they reach the ages 14-16 years.

"The results went against the conventional theories that suggest tolerance should increase with age," says Dr Rivka Witenberg, a cognitive and developmental psychologist, who led the research at the University of Melbourne.

"We still lack solid empirical evidence for what tolerance is and what impact it has on society, but these findings offer some early insight into the development of racial tolerance, under what circumstances we are tolerant or intolerant and to whom we extend tolerance. They have important implications for education and community programs and may help shape the debate and practice on relevant social policies," she says.

"To learn to live together, we need to promote and protect tolerance and we need to think carefully about how we do this through the civic education system. It could be argued that we need to educate for a conscious rejection of prejudiced attitudes, beliefs and responses," she says.

Witenberg defines tolerance as the ability to reflect on one's beliefs, prejudices, ignorance and experience. This definition provided the division between the tolerant and intolerant in her study.

The initial study involved 184 school and university students from the ages of 11 to 22 years. About 90 percent of participants were tolerant in the younger age groups, but this tolerance decreased with age.

To back these findings, Witenberg conducted an identical study in Israel. The study produced exactly the same results as the Australian one. Witenberg recently completed a second Australian study in collaboration with RMIT and the Australian Multicultural Foundation that also confirms these findings.

The study presented participants with three dilemma-like stories based on real life incidents involving racial discrimination. The dilemmas could be resolved using tolerant or intolerant views.

Story one involved an Asian person whom a shopkeeper wanted to serve last because Asians do not belong in Australia. Story two involved an employer who refused to hire a young English person because English people are lazy. The final story was based on a teacher who wanted to give Aboriginal students lower marks because they are black.

"The younger age groups tended to strongly reject intolerance and had a more global response to the survey questions. They saw no difference between the scenarios. They assessed the situation and judged it as fair or unfair, or with or without empathy," says Witenberg.

"The older the group, the more they began to analyse each situation. By 18 years of age, they became quite sophisticated in their reasoning," she says.

Girls displayed greater tolerance than boys, but of concern was the high level of prejudice developed by boys at 14-16 years, a problem found in Australia and Israel.

"What is it that these boys take from their social and cultural environment that predisposes them to accept intolerant views, and why just the boys? Are girls able to reflect on their beliefs better?" she says.

Another unexpected result was that the greatest tolerance was extended to the Aboriginal in the school scenario with the least tolerance shown toward the English person in the work situation.

"This raises questions about the relationship between the person and situation," says Witenberg.

Witenberg suggests that people distinguish between situations and that we may need to rethink whether we should spend so much time on the differences of the person and more time assessing the situation when trying to understand prejudice.

For example, all participants across all ages said a teacher has to be fair when marking. But a shopkeeper refusing to serve Asians until last was treated differently. The younger groups only said it was either fair or unfair, but the older groups would analyse the situation suggesting that people have a right to their beliefs.

Most participants accepted a person's right to talk about prejudicial beliefs, but this was most pronounced in the older groups. There was less acceptance of people who actually held these beliefs and almost zero acceptance of those that acted on those beliefs.

"Somewhere along the way, society and possibly civic education gives young people the message about individual and democratic rights and about freedom of speech. What it fails to teach them is the limits to these rights and freedoms," says Witenberg.

"In trying to eradicate prejudice, we have perhaps placed too much emphasis on the thought that we are all the same. We are not. But we are all entitled to be treated equally."