Stephan (1978) looked at a number of studies and concluded that de-segregation seems not to have reduced white prejudice towards blacks, and black prejudice towards whites appears to have increased. Schofield (1982) studied a ‘model’ integrated school, he found that at first interaction and friendship were led by group attitudes and then slowly started to take account of personal qualities over a three year period. However, racial attitudes changed very little over this time.
“Brown and Turner (1981) argue that if interpersonal friendship (as Deutsch and Collins would claim) but because of changes in the nature and structure of ‘inter-group’ relationships.” (Quote from Gross)
I am now going to discuss the pursuit of common goals. “In a co-operative situation, the attainment of one person’s goal enhances the chances of attainment of the goals of other group members; and this reverses the situation where competition prevails (Brown, 1986).”
Sophie Fielding
(Quote from Gross) One attempt to alter the classroom experience in order to realise equal-status contact and mutual co-operation was done using the jigsaw classroom technique by Aronson et al (1978). In this technique children were put in small, mixed race learning groups, each member of each group were given material, which represented one piece of the lesson to be learned. Each individual child had to learn its part and then teach it to the rest of the group. At the end of the lesson each child was to be tested on the whole lesson and what they had learnt from the other children and were given an individual score. Therefore, each child had to learn the full lesson but were dependant on the others in the group for the parts of the lesson that could only be learned from them. This caused complete mutual independence.
Aronson et al (1978) believed that the jigsaw method enhanced the students self esteem, and improved academic performance, increasing a liking for classmates and also improving some mixed race perceptions between the classmates. However, even though the classmates who worked together liked each other better as individuals, their reduced prejudice did not generalise to those ethnic groups as a whole. This shows us that when mixed race groups have to work together without any choice in the matter they find that they actually like each other however, when they are not in this situation ethnic groups tend to go back to their original status back with their “own group” of people which usually consists mainly of their own race.
Sheriff et al (1961) conducted an experiment, which consisted of two groups of boys being taken to an island and each group was put on a separate part of the island unaware of each others existence. While there was no knowledge of either group there was no conflict. However, the groups were informed about the other group on the island and as soon as this happened the groups gave themselves a name and an element of conflict arose in the groups. They were very competitive and didn’t like each other at all even though they knew nothing about the other group of people. After being in the camp for two weeks their water supply was cut off and the groups were forced to work together in order to get through the tasks, in order to “survive” while the groups had to work together there was no conflict and they got on fine, the prejudice was decreased. “In the final few days, the group divisions disappeared and they actually suggested travelling home together in one bus; 65 % of their friendship choices now were made from the other group and their stereotypes changed too, becoming much more favourable.” (Quote from Gross)
Sophie Fielding
From the two ways of reducing prejudice that I have written about I can conclude that when people are segregated, they are more likely to be hostile to other groups of people who are different from them, whether it be by ethnic minority or even if they have a different view about something to those who are from integrated areas. I believe that this also occurs within a group. If you belong to a certain social group of people and there is another group who are different for example ‘charvas’ and ‘Goths’ there is usually hostility between the two groups, because they dress differently and enjoy different things, this does not mean that the people in either group are ‘out casts’ or any different to those in the other groups yet we see this hostility everyday. However, if these groups were made to work together in a situation that they had no control over I think the line ‘drawn’ between them would disappear and they would begin to like each other and get along. However, as discussed in a number of studies namely the one by Aronson et al (1978) who worked with the jigsaw classroom technique it has proven that changes in prejudice arising from the work situation may not generalise to other situations and until prejudice is reduced in society for example through education which will employ these techniques people will be more likely to stay aggressive and not really understand why.
