Reducing Antisemitism and Other Prejudices: Can Biographical Intergroup Contact Help to Prevent Radicalization?
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Abstract
Biographical intergroup contact, through which participants learn about the life and perspective of a real outgroup member, is potentially a powerful new prejudice reduction tool which challenges antisemitism as a means of reducing extremism initially against Jewish people, and by extension to other stigmatized groups. Impact evaluation of two field studies tested the effects of biographical contact on children and adolescents’ willingness to have intergroup contact with Jewish people and six other groups that are commonly the target of extremism. Biographical contact was implemented through an anti-prejudice education program led by the charity the Anne Frank Trust UK and was based on the life and diary of the Jewish teenager Anne Frank. In Study 1, with young people between the ages of 12 and 15 years (N = 122), pre- and post-measures showed that the program significantly improved young people’s willingness for contact with Jewish people, and that change predicted 43% of the variance in improvement in attitudes towards the six other groups. Study 2, with children aged 8 to 12 years (N =330) confirmed significant improvements in three hypothesized mechanisms: knowledge, intergroup empathy and confidence in intergroup communication. Theoretical and practical implications for preventing extremism and radicalization are discussed.
Topics
Dialogue Jewish Relations With Non-Jews Attitudes to Jews: Knowledge of Jews Prejudice Evaluation and Impact Youth Main Topic: Education
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Geographic Coverage
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
The JD Journal for Deradicalization uses a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND) Licence. You are free to share - copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format under the following conditions:
Attribution — You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, andindicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.
NonCommercial — You may not use the material for commercial purposes.
NoDerivatives — If you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you may not distribute the modified material.
The JD Journal for Deradicalization uses a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND) Licence. You are free to share - copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format under the following conditions:
Attribution — You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, andindicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.
NonCommercial — You may not use the material for commercial purposes.
NoDerivatives — If you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you may not distribute the modified material.
Original Language
Volume/Issue
49(2)
Page Number / Article Number
200-233
Link
Link to article including link to pdf, Reducing Antisemitism and Other Prejudices: Can Biographical Intergroup Contact Help to Prevent Radicalization?
Bibliographic Information
Reducing Antisemitism and Other Prejudices: Can Biographical Intergroup Contact Help to Prevent Radicalization?. 2026: 200-233. https://archive.jpr.org.uk/object-5997
