Stereotypes and racial prejudice in children’s minds. Images, discussions, perspectives.

Abstract

The purpose of the following article is to share with the readers the most significant results gone out from an experience of little groups’discussions with kids 9-11 years old, in some Primary schools in the province of Reggio Emilia, during the school year 2003-04. The kids’ knowledge and ideas about different countries and people (in detail: China and Chinese people, Africa and African people, gypsies) and also their opinions and feelings about migrant people in our country were the topics of the discussions. Starting from the gathered facts and sentences, I would like to point out the stereotypes, the prejudices, how and why they grow, but also the knowledges, the necessities, the meanings and the abilities that can be exploited to the direction of the intercultural education.