A German-American research team developed an educational program that centers on what people share rather than what divides them, and tested it on a large scale. The results showed significant reductions in discriminatory attitudes and measurable gains in prosocial behavior, civic values and social engagement.
According to Phys.org, the study was conducted across 644 school classes with more than 8,600 participants in India. The program was developed by researchers from the University of Konstanz, the University of California San Diego and Stanford University. The results were published in the journal Nature Human Behaviour.
"The effect approaches just about half of the influence that one's own family has on opinions and values," said Christina Felfe, a professor of applied microeconomics and a member of the Cluster of Excellence "The Politics of Inequality" at the University of Konstanz.
Most educational programs aimed at reducing prejudice focus on specific social differences such as ethnicity, religion or nationality. The researchers argue that approach has a built-in limitation. When participants learn that a particular difference does not make people better or worse, they tend not to apply that lesson to other kinds of differences. A person who learns that nationality should not be a source of judgment often does not automatically extend that thinking to religion, gender or political opinion. Past studies have also found that the effects of difference-focused programs tend to fade quickly and rarely transfer outside the classroom.
The program developed by Felfe and her colleagues takes the opposite approach. It focuses on universal human values and shared biological and moral characteristics, rather than on the divisions that need to be overcome. The core concept is built around reconciling common ground with human diversity.
"Our approach shows that diversity is not the opposite of unity, but that diversity is exactly the difference between unity and uniformity," Felfe explains.
The program has three foundational elements. First, it builds participants' awareness of shared universal human characteristics from both a biological and a moral perspective. Second, it teaches students to create positive environments. The third element was not fully detailed in the available material, but the structure is designed to give students tools they can apply across many different social contexts, not just the ones addressed directly in the classroom.
"We should not forget how much we have in common," Felfe said. The research team argues that social division tends to grow along lines of small differences even when people share most of the same fundamental values regardless of background.
The scale of the pilot study sets it apart from most previous research in this area. Testing across more than 8,600 participants in a single study provides a larger evidence base than most comparable programs have generated. The researchers say the results support the case for redesigning tolerance education around shared human values rather than cataloguing and addressing specific differences one by one.
The study was published in Nature Human Behaviour. The research team is affiliated with the University of Konstanz's Cluster of Excellence focused on inequality and political behavior.
