By Chloe Goldberg

The National Institute of Health recently awarded a University of Maryland research team $1.67 million to support its work in reducing childhood prejudice through an online program administered to local elementary school students.

The award allows researchers within the college of education to determine the effectiveness of a web-based tool that sparks discussions on inclusivity in hopes of creating a more equitable school environment. 

“It’s opening up an opportunity for them to discuss it at a sensitive time when these norms have been established about respecting each other,” said Melanie Killen, a professor in the Department of Human Development and Quantitative Methodology and the project lead. 

The program comes as part of the college’s “Developing Inclusive Youth” project, which examines the consequences of social stratification on a child’s development. 

The 8-week exercise presents children in third through fifth grades with an animated scenario showing students like themselves practicing exclusionary behavior, said Killen. One animation shows two girls jumping rope on the playground and contemplating whether to invite a new student to join them. After one of the characters refuses to include the new student, the children are asked a series of questions on the situation, including how they believe the characters should have reacted.

Following each computer session, a teacher leads a 30-minute discussion, opening the floor for students to share personal experiences with being left out. In one discussion, a female student said that she felt she couldn’t play with a group of boys during recess, said Killen. The boys in the classroom then expressed empathy for the student, reassuring her that they would have invited her to play if they knew she wanted to. 

“Even if the boys had seen her at recess and didn’t ask her, now they’ve said it publicly in a classroom that this is something they would do…We think that’ll help really change the norm at the school, the expectations,” Killen said. 

Cecilia Porto, a senior psychology major and undergraduate research assistant for the project, echoed Killen’s statement.

“They are not only interacting with the story, but they’re also being asked how the character might feel about the situation,” said Porto. “Not just this is a story, but like, this can happen, and they can relate to it.” 

The program tackles a new issue each week, including exclusion based on race and immigrant status. It is administered to students in Montgomery County Public Schools.

The project comes at what is being called a particularly tense time in America for race relations. A survey released in April by the Pew Research Center showed that 6 in 10 Americans perceive race relations in the United States as bad, with 56% saying that President Donald Trump has made relations worse. Meanwhile, public schools around the country are still grappling with segregation, six decades after Brown v. Board of Education ruled it unconstitutional. A student-led movement in New York City, home to the country’s largest public school system, is now working to fix the situation. 

“We think it’s 2019 and [that] a lot of things have improved, but they really haven’t,” said Porto. 

But for Killen, the program captures more than a fragile moment in history— it is the culmination of 25 years of measuring bias among children. The skits shown in the online tool are based on countless interviews conducted by Killen and her research team, as well as observations they’ve made in classrooms and on the playground.

Young children are an important group when it comes to teaching acceptance, said Killen. Stereotypes become entrenched by adulthood, reinforced for years and are rarely challenged or questioned. However, because 8-year-olds are just starting to acquire these stereotypes, there is still a “window of opportunity” to make a difference.

“And [children] also have a strong sense of fairness and equality, and so we want to kind of harness that natural inclination…before these stereotypes and stereotypic images and associations that are in the culture get too pervasive,” said Killen. 

The study will conclude after four years. If proven successful, the program will be made available to students in other parts of the country and around the world.