Classroom ethnic diversity, cross-ethnicity friendships, and theory of mind in middle childhood and early adolescence

• In Event: Theory of Mind and School Experiences in Children and Young Adolescents

Abstract

Demographic changes over the past half century in Western Europe and North America mean that children increasingly participate in racially/ethnically diverse classrooms, presenting children opportunities for interacting with others whose cultural backgrounds and perspectives may differ from their own (Galinsky et al., 2015). Yet, little is known about how experiences in diverse classrooms shape children’s social skills, and more specifically, their ability to reason about others’ minds called ‘theory of mind’ (‘ToM’). Evidence for ongoing development of ToM across middle childhood presents new opportunities to investigate links between children’s classroom social experiences and ToM (Lecce & Devine, 2022). The current study aimed to examine the links between participation in racially/ethnically diverse classrooms, cross race/ethnicity friendships, and children’s ToM.
According to social psychological accounts, participation in racially/ethnically diverse classrooms alongside children with different cultural perspectives and experiences should encourage deliberate reasoning about others’ minds, rather than a reliance on shared habits or norms (Pettigrew & Tropp, 2006). According to developmental accounts (e.g., Lecce & Devine, 2022), which emphasise the importance of children’s peer social interactions as a key training ground for ToM, cross race/ethnicity friendships (rather than mere participation in a racially/ethnically diverse classroom) might be particularly important for ToM. To test these accounts, we examined the associations between classroom-level racial/ethnic diversity, children’s cross race/ethnicity friendships, and ToM.
Method
A racially/ethnically diverse sample (52% White, 32% Asian, 8% Black, 6% Mixed race/ethnicity) of 1020 children (Mage = 10.36, SDage = 1.27, Range: 8 – 13 years, 55% girls) from the United Kingdom participated in whole-class testing. Children were spread across 37 classrooms varying in racial/ethnic diversity according to Simpson’s Diversity Index, M = .49, SD = .28, Range: 0 - .91. A score of 0 represents a homogeneous classroom (i.e., consisting entirely of children from the same race/ethnicity) and a score of 1 indicates a class with equal representation of all racial/ethnic groups in the study (i.e., fully heterogeneous classroom) (e.g., Rasheed et al., 2020). Children completed measures of ToM (Devine et al., 2016) and verbal ability (Rust, 2008). Friendships were measured by tallying the number of reciprocated ‘most-like’ nominations in a peer nomination task (Cillessen & Marks, 2017). The number of cross race/ethnicity friendships was divided by the total number of friendships differences in total friendships between children.
Results
Three findings emerged from the multi-level regression models (Table 1). First, children with cross race/ethnicity friendships outperformed their peers on ToM tests, even when age, verbal ability and demographic factors were considered (Model 2). Second, over-and-above child-level covariates, classroom racial/ethnic diversity was only marginally associated with ToM (Model 3). Third, having cross race/ethnicity friendships was most positively associated with ToM in classrooms with low and average levels of racial/ethnic diversity (Model 4 and Figure 1). These results support developmental accounts highlighting the importance of social interactions and relationships with diverse peers as a training ground for ToM in middle childhood and early adolescence (Lecce & Devine, 2022).

 

Group Authors

Classroom ethnic diversity, cross-ethnicity friendships, and theory of mind in middle childhood and early adolescence.
Rory T. Devine
University of Birmingham, United Kingdom
Luca Ronchi & Serena Lecce
University of Pavia, Italy
Correspondence: [email protected]
 

Authors

• Rory T. Devine, University of Birmingham
  Presenting Author

• Luca ronchi, University of Pavia

• Serena Lecce, University of Pavia