Pride and prejudice in the primary school

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Alf Davey

Alf Davey was at one time the deputy head of a primary school and is now Reader in Applied Social Studies at the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne. He was coordinator of the Social Science Research Council funded project on the development of racial awareness in young children. His article reports some of the findings from this project. It provides good evidence that ‘racial and ethnic distinctions are extensively employed by British primary school children in their attempts to make sense of the world. Moreover, since they are being initiated into an implicitly discriminating society, this early classificatory process is often accompanied by frank ethnic prejudice’.