Who belongs here? Children's attitudes about immigration and nationality

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Abstract

More than ever, immigrants are stigmatized, pressured to assimilate, and their rights restricted. Nationalism and explicit anti-immigrant sentiment are rising globally, and so it is critical to understand the developmental roots of these biases. Indeed, both anti-immigrant bias and nationalism may arise early in development. Even kindergarteners are biased against immigrants (Brown, 2011) and view a person’s national identity as stable and inductively meaningful (Hussak & Cimpian, 2019). This symposium builds on this work by presenting four new perspectives on the developmental roots of immigration attitudes.

Presentation 1 examines 5-10-year-old children’s first- and third-party evaluations of people who change their social groups, showing that even kindergarteners favor and expect others to favor “natural-born” members of a group over newcomers, and suggesting that a general “anti-convert” bias underlies attitudes towards immigrants. Presentation 2 considers 4-10-year-old children’s preferences and attitudes toward immigrants to a novel island nation, demonstrating that children’s beliefs hinge on both whether immigrants culturally assimilate and immigrants’ reason for leaving their home country. Presentation 3 investigates 6-11-year-old children’s attitudes about structural discrimination towards immigrants, revealing that only around half of the children tested viewed a society where majority-native group members systematically receive greater access to jobs as “very unfair.” Finally, Presentation 4 addresses the influence of cultural stereotypes on 4-8-year-old children’s evaluations of racial groups, notably finding that White U.S.-based children viewed Black and Asian targets as “less American” than White targets.

Together, these findings provide important, novel insights into how early attitudes about nationality and immigration emerge.

Sub Unit

• Race, Ethnicity, Culture, Context

Chairs

• Emily Rachel Gonsier Gerdin, Yale University

• Radhika Santhanagopalan, University of Chicago

Individual Presentations

• Children and adults display an “anti-convert” bias - Presenting Author: Emily Rachel Gonsier Gerdin, Yale University; Non-Presenting Author: Yarrow C Dunham, Yale University

• The Development of Immigration Attitudes - Presenting Author: Radhika Santhanagopalan, University of Chicago; Non-Presenting Author: Chris A Monteiro, Cornell University; Non-Presenting Author: Hannah Hok, University of Chicago; Non-Presenting Author: Amy R Krosch, Cornell University; Non-Presenting Author: Alex Shaw, University of Chicago; Non-Presenting Author: Katherine D. Kinzler, University of Chicago

• Elementary children’s perceptions and explanations of structural discrimination facing immigrants - Presenting Author: Christia Spears Brown, University of Kentucky

• Racial Stereotype Application in 4-to-8-Year Old White American Children: Emergence and Specificity - Presenting Author: Jellie Sierksma, Utrecht University; Non-Presenting Author: Elizabeth L Brey, University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa; Non-Presenting Author: Kristin Shutts, University of Wisconsin - Madison