Discourses on racism in families with school-aged children in Catalonia

ABSTRACT

Unfortunately, racism is a kind of violence present in current societies that embodies an attitude opposed to the culture of peace. In this scenario, the family has a relevant role to contribute to the development of values related to human rights. With the aim of identifying patterns and challenges to progress from a polarized debate to an empathetic and non-violent dialogue, the discourse between parents and children between 3 and 16 years of age is reviewed. For this purpose, a questionnaire was designed and 1,701 families in Catalonia (Autonomous Community of Spain) answered it. The results show that racism represents 9.7% of the controversial topics of conversation at home; the principal values and attitudes that guide the family discourse are: respect (23.1%), fighting injustice (18.7%), and equality (12.4%); families who claim to have suffered racism reach 6%; women and individuals with a low level of education are those who most believe that the economy would improve if immigrants went back to their countries; and those who sent their children to a charter school prefer them to relate with people of the same culture. Considering this evidence, guidelines are formulated to encourage reflection and anti-xenophobic dialogue at home.

KEYWORDS:

• Family
• values
• communication
• racism
• xenophobia
• school

Data Availability

The data that support the findings of this study are available on request from the corresponding author.

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank the families that took part in this study.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Ethical Standards

This study was conducted in accordance with the ethical standards laid down in the 2013 Fortaleza version of the Declaration of Helsinki.

Informed Consent

Informed consent was obtained from each participant.

Additional information

Funding

This research receive support from the International Catalan Institute for Peace-ICIP, in collaboration with the University and Research Adjustment Management Agency-AGAUR (Reference Agència de Gestió d’Ajuts Universitaris i de Recerca - International Catalan Institute for Peace 2019_RICIP_00012; Agència de Gestió d’Ajuts Universitaris i de Recerca - International Catalan Institute for PeaceAgència de Gestió d’Ajuts Universitaris i de Recerca - International Catalan Institute for Peace [2019_RICIP_00012];