Children’s perceptions of inequalities

• In Event: Poster Session 08
  In Poster Session: PS 08 Topic -Diversity, Equity & Social Justice

Abstract

Social- and economic inequalities are at the center of heated public debates, but how do children perceive inequalities? Previous developmental research on inequality and fairness has relied dominantly on behavioral experiments or hypothetical scenarios (Blake et al., 2015; Rizzo, Elenbaas, & Vanderblit, 2018). Even children as young as 3 years old are aware of inequalities (Lobue et al., 2011) and with growing age, they begin to apply norms of fairness and rectify inequalities (Blake & McAullife, 2011; Elenbaas et al., 2016). Yet, when researchers design scenarios to probe responses to inequalities, their insights may not necessarily probe facets that are salient for children (Gutzwiller-Helfenfinger, Gasser, & Malti, 2010). For example, qualitative research from sociology has shown that even young children are aware of differences in social class and associate having a lot of money with being rich (Rauscher, Friedline, & Banerjee, 2017). To better understand children’s own perspectives own inequalities and how they may change with age, we use a narrative approach and semi-structured interviews. We conduct an online-interview study with about 60 children, aged 5.5 to 15.5 years (divided into 3 age groups: 5.5 - 7.5, 9.5 - 11.5, 13.5 -15.5) in Leipzig, Germany. In two steps, we first ask children to recount events that they experienced as unfair. Second, we ask children to recall situations in which other people experienced inequalities. After each of the two steps, we assess children’s evaluations about these experiences as well as their perceived emotions using Likert scales. We also investigate children’s and parents’ subjective social status through the McArthur Scale. We will analyze the interview data using a deductive and inductive approach. After developing a final coding framework, we will examine the main themes in children’s narratives and their evaluations, and examine whether these differ between age groups. We anticipate that children’s perceptions of inequalities and priorities about what is unfair will change over development, with older children becoming increasingly aware of the wider social and structural causes of inequalities. We expect also differences in evaluations (reasoning and emotional) with increasing age. For example, older children might evaluate experiences as more unfair even if they are advantages for themselves but create inequality for others. Children’s real-life narratives can provide new insights into children’s understanding of inequalities and build new ground for future investigations (e.g., creation of hypothetical scenarios and behavioral tasks). Data collection will be completed approximately at the beginning of 2021 and the data will be analyzed in February and March 2021.

Authors

• Süheyla Yilmaz, Leipzig University
  Presenting Author

• Robert Hepach, University of Oxford
  Non-Presenting Author

• Patricia Kanngiesser, University of Plymouth
  Non-Presenting Author