Discrimination,

Prejudice and
Stereotype
Presented by:
Nor Anisa Musa
Discrimination
 Discrimination toward or against a person
or group is the treatment or consideration
based on class or category rather than
individual merit. It is usually associated with
prejudice. It can be behavior promoting a
certain group (e.g. affirmative action), or it
can be negative behavior directed against a
certain group (e.g. redlining).
Personal / Individual Discrimination
 Farley (2000:16) contends that individual
discrimination can refer to any act that leads to the
unequal treatment because of race or ethnicity that
is directed at a specific individual.
Examples:
 a home owner refusing to sell to a Jew
 a taxi driver refusing to pick up African American
fares
 an employer paying Chicano workers a lower wage
than white workers.
Legal

 Robertson (1989:204) contends that legal

discrimination is "unequal treatment, on the
grounds of group membership, that is
upheld by law."
Direct vs. subtle

 Unlawful discrimination will can be characterized

as direct or subtle. Direct discrimination involves
treating someone less favorably because of their
possession of an attribute (e.g., sex, age, race,
religion, family status, national origin, military
status, sexual orientation, disability, body
size/shape), compared with someone without that
attribute in the same circumstances.
Subtle
 Subtle discrimination involves setting a condition
or requirement which a smaller proportion of
those with the attribute are able to comply with,
without reasonable justification. The U.S. case of
Griggs v. Duke Power Company provides an
example of indirect discrimination, where an
aptitude test used in job applications was found
"to disqualify Negroes at a substantially higher
rate than white applicants". Kirton
Racial discrimination
 According to the Oxford English Dictionary,
racism is a belief or ideology that all
members of each racial group possess
characteristics or abilities specific to that
race, especially to distinguish it as being
either superior or inferior to another racial
group or racial groups.
Age discrimination

 Age discrimination is or group on the grounds of

age. Although theoretically the word can refer to
the discrimination against any age group, age
discrimination usually comes in one of three
forms: discrimination against youth (also called
adultism), discrimination against those 40 years
old or older, and discrimination against elderly
people.
Ageism
Ageism is the causal effect of a continuum of
fears related to age. This continuum
includes:
 Pediaphobia: the fear of infants or small
children.
 Ephebiphobia: the fear of youth.
 Gerontophobia: the fear of elderly people.
Related terms include:

 Adultism: Also called adultarchy, adult

privilege, and adultcentrism/adultocentrism,
this is the wielding of authority over young
people and the preference of adults before
children and youth.
 Jeunism: Also called "youthism" is the
holding of beliefs or actions taken that
preference 'younger' people before adults.
PREJUDICE
 Initially this is referred to making a
judgment about a person based on their
race, religion, class, etc., before receiving
information relevant to the particular issue
on which a judgment was being made; it
came, however, to be widely used to refer
to any hostile attitude towards people
based on their race or even by just judging
someone without even knowing them.
Forms of Prejudice
Cognitive Prejudice
 Cognitive prejudice refers to what people believe is true

Affective Prejudice
 Affective prejudice points to peoples likes and dislikes

Conative prejudice
 refers to how people are inclined to behave. Note that
this is still an attitude because people don't actually act
on their feelings. An example of conative prejudice might
be found in the statement "If I were in charge I'd send all
the Wallonians back to where ever they came from."
Social Learning and Conformity as a
Cause of Prejudice
Agents of Socialization
 Values are internalized as people
encounter various agents of socialization.
Attitudes and behaviors are learned within
a social context where agents of
socialization are important (Farley,
2000:29-32).
Agents of Socialization
 The Family
 The School
 Peer Groups
 Work
 The State
 Media
Social Learning and Conformity as a
Cause of Prejudice
Selective Exposure and Modeling
 Farley (2000:29) notes that "if a child is
exposed to one set of values over time, the
child will eventually come to view that set of
values as the "natural way". This is
especially true when the models are
someone whom the child is especially close
to like parents or close relatives.
Social Learning and Conformity as a
Cause of Prejudice
 Reward and Punishment
All agents of socialization reward behavior
and expression of attitude that conform to
their norms and punish those that do not.
These rewards and punishments are
sometime very formal. Other types of
rewards and sanctions are informal and
imprompt (Farley, 2000:29).
Education and Prejudice
 People of higher SES are often better
educated and education is often seen as a
way to breaking down oversimplified,
stereotypical thinking. As we become
better educated, we become better able to
understand complex ideas and situations.
(Farley, 2000:34).
How can we help our children learn
to deal with prejudice?
 Children are also being exposed to different
cultures through the media. They are
learning and forming opinions about people
and events all over the country and the
world. As a result, there is more of a need
and opportunity to help children learn to
understand and value diversity.
How schools can diffuse prejudice
 Children should not be placed in situations
where differences in gender, race, ethnicity,
economic status, and academic ability are
stressed, or are even allowed to be
expressed in a negative, divisive way.
 Team spirit can conquer feelings of
difference and separateness that children
experience among themselves.
How schools can diffuse prejudice
 Does the school take advantage of ethnic holidays -
Chinese New Year, Hari Raya Puasa, Deepavali,
etc.- for children to actively learn customs and
traditions with which they may not be familiar?
 Do teachers have open discussions in class about
discrimination and negative feelings toward others?
If an incident involving prejudice has occurred at
school or in the community, is it used as a
springboard to discuss these issues in a sensitive,
nonpunitive, nonstigmatizing way that emphasizes
the common human qualities of people
Stereotype
 A stereotype is a preconceived idea that
attributes certain characteristics (in general) to all
the members of class or set. The term is often
used with a negative connotation when referring
to an oversimplified, exaggerated, or demeaning
assumption that a particular individual possesses
the characteristics associated with the class due
to his or her membership in it.
Stereotype
 Stereotypes often form the basis of prejudice and
are usually employed to explain real or imaginary
differences due to race, gender, religion, ethnicity,
socio-economic class, disability, occupation, etc.
 A stereotype can be a conventional and
oversimplified conception, opinion, or image
based on the belief that there are attitudes,
appearances, or behaviors shared by all members
of a group.
Causes
 One perspective on how to understand
stereotyping process is through the
categories or ingroups and outgroups.
Ingroups are viewed as normal and
superior, and are generally the group that
one associates with or aspires to join. An
outgroup is simply all the other groups.
They are seen as lesser or inferior than the
ingroups.
Causes
 A second perspective is that of automatic and
implicit or subconscious and conscious.
Automatic or subconscious stereotyping is that
which everyone does without noticing. Automatic
stereotyping is quickly preceded by an implicit or
conscious check which permits time for any
needed corrections. Automatic stereotyping is
affected by implicit stereotyping because frequent
conscious thoughts will quickly develop into
subconscious stereotypes.
Causes
 A third method to categorizing stereotypes is
general types and sub-types. Stereotypes consist
of hierarchical systems consisting of broad and
specific groups being the general types and sub-
types respectively. A general type could be
defined as a broad stereotype typically known
among many people and usually widely accepted,
whereas the sub-group would be one of the
several groups making up the general group.
These would be more specific, and opinions of
these groups would vary according to differing
perspectives.
Psychological research
 A study which found that bogus feedback to college students
dramatically affected their IQ test performance, and another
in which students were either praised as very smart,
congratulated on their hard work, or told that they scored
high. The group praised as smart performed significantly
worse than the others. They believe that there is an 'innate
ability bias'. These effects are not just limited to minority
groups. Mathematically competent white males, mostly math
and engineering students, were asked to take a difficult math
test. One group was told that this was being done to
determine why Asians were scoring better. This group
performed significantly worse than the other group (Aronso et
al., 2005).
Possible prejudicial effects of
stereotypes are:

 Justification of ill-founded prejudices or

ignorance
 Unwillingness to rethink one's attitudes and
behavior towards stereotyped group
 Preventing some people of stereotyped groups
from entering or succeeding in activities or
fields
Effects of stereotyping
 The effects of stereotyping can fluctuate, but for the most part
they are negative, and not always apparent until long periods
of time have passed. Over time, some victims of negative
stereotypes display self-fulfilling prophecy behavior, in which
they assume that the stereotype represents norms to
emulate. Negative effects may include forming inaccurate
opinions of people, scapegoating, erroneously
judgmentalism, preventing emotional identification, distress,
and impaired performance. Stereotyping painfully reminds
those being judged of how society views them.
Research
Katz found that Blacks were able to
score better on an IQ subtest, if the test
was presented as a test of
eye-hand coordination. Blacks also
scored higher on an IQ test when they
believed the test would be compared to
that of other blacks. Katz concluded that
his subjects were thoroughly aware of
the judgment of intellectual inferiority
held by many white Americans. With little
expectation of overruling this judgment,
their motivation was low, and so were
their scores.
Research
 The researchers concluded this was
because stereotype threat made the
students anxious about confirming the
stereotype regarding African American IQ.
The researchers found that the difference
was even more noticeable when race was
emphasized.
Summary
 Children can suffer from a climate of prejudice.
Prejudice creates social and emotional tension
and can lead to fear and anxiety and occasionally
hostility and violence.
 Prejudice and discrimination can undermine the
self-esteem and self-confidence of those being
ridiculed and make them feel terrible, unaccepted
and unworthy. When that happens, their school
performance often suffers, they may become
depressed and socially withdrawn and childhood
can become a much less happy time.
Summary
 Schools should be a place where your child learns
more than academic skills. They should also
promote understanding and cooperation among
people, not prejudice.
 Sometimes "stereotype" and "prejudice" are
confused. Stereotypes are standardized and
simplified conceptions of groups, based on some
prior assumptions. Stereotypes are created based
on some idea of abstract familiarity. Prejudices
are more specific - they are predispositions to
differential behavior patterns.
Summary
 Childhood influences are some of the most
complex and influential factors in
developing stereotypes.
 Though they can be absorbed at any age,
stereotypes are usually acquired in early
childhood under the influence of parents,
teachers, peers, and the media. Once a
stereotype is learned, it often becomes self-
perpetuating.