Exploring and evaluating school-based interventions to reduce prejudice

Three studies examined ways of talking about race and racial evaluations in order to reduce rather than mise prejudice. The first study evaluated an 1 1-week classroom program designed to encourage, through teacher-led discuss ion, the processing of internal attributes of people rather than their race . In a second study, high-prejudice White students were paired with a low-p rejudice friend to discuss their racial evaluations. The third study explor ed ways that students orally respond when they overhear a peer's demeaning racial remark and the conflicting pressures influencing their interventions . Results overall support the assumption that talking about race and racial attitudes can reduce prejudice under certain conditions, and that peers ma y be valuable sources of influence in this dialogue.