Amaze champions safety and belonging for all children and families. About AMAZE
Bullying about differences starts early, is prevalent, and can have dangerous consequences:
bullet During the preschool years, children begin to experiment with acting out biases, usually away from adults.(Van Ausdale and Feagin, 2001)
bullet In elementary school, name-calling becomes the most frequent form of bullying and a common form of inter-group discrimination that goes largely unchecked in schools (Verkuyten, Kinker, & Van der Wielen, 1997) which can set a norm for tolerating of public discrimination (Aboud, 2007).
bullet In a California study of high school students, over twenty-five percent of reported harassment targeted students’ race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, gender, actual or perceived sexual orientation, or disability. Bias-based bullying is detrimental to all children’s school success, physical and emotional health, and lives; for the targeted children missed-school-days, low grades, depression, substance abuse, risk behaviors, and even suicide are frequent consequences of bullying (California Safe Schools Study 2004).
Research indicates that children are fully aware of differences and disparity:
bullet Young children notice differences and are aware of bias, discrimination, and inequality. (Aboud 1988, Katz 1976, Ramsey 1998, Ramsey and Williams 2002)
Children naturally categorize and are vulnerable to stereotypes and in-group favoritism:
bullet Young children categorize people based on external cues like skin color and gender and then over-generalize about corresponding attributes, roles or exaggerate differences between groups (Bigler, 1999)
bullet Six- to nine-year-old white children exhibited stronger preferences for same-race playmates and used racial cues more readily to judge their similarity and dissimilarity to other children. (Katz, 2000)
Anti-bias education and bystander skills are needed to prevent bullying:
bullet The California Safe Schools Study (2004) concluded: “Anti-bullying efforts may be less effective than anti-bias efforts aimed at preventing harassment on specific biases, namely actual or perceived sexual orientation, race, ethnicity, national origin, gender, religion, and physical or mental disability.”
bullet Researchers are honing age-specific words and models that best teach children to take stands against bias and bullying. (Packman, Lepkowski, Overton, Smaby, Marlowe, 2005 and Aboud, 2007).
bullet When peers have intervened in bullying situations, they were successful at stopping the bullying more times than not (Hawkins et al., 2001).
Anti-bias education supports academic success:
bullet Social-emotional learning programming improved students’ achievement test scores by 11 to 17 percentile points. (Patton, J., et al, 2006)
bullet Kids who can function comfortably in their own cultures and in the dominant culture have fewer risk behaviors. High school students who were succeeding in school were more likely to have strong identification with their own ethnicity. (Lew, 2006)
AMAZE’s anti-bias tools are effective and needed:
bullet Many adults feel reluctant or unable to talk with children about differences like race (Vittrup, 2007), the existence of bias, and the attitudes and skills needed to respond to bias and injustice.
bullet Educators cite lack of teaching tools as their biggest obstacle to doing this work. (Groundspark, 2005)
bullet Reading and discussing picture books about differences and bias has a significant impact on children’s bias. (Hawkins, 2007)
bullet Story-reading for prejudice reduction is also useful when the opportunity for direct contact is low or when preparing a positive environment before contact occurs. (Cameron and Rutland, 2006)
bullet AMAZE programs use effective prejudice-reduction strategies of training social cognitive skills and utilizing emotional involvement through empathy and role playing. Prejudice and discrimination can be reduced by: presenting similarities between groups of people and individualized information within groups (different and the same); revealing multiple classifications (complexity) of every person; promoting a dynamic view of human nature (people can change), etc. (Oskamp, 2000 and Katz, 2000)
AMAZE’s programs begin with young children, when attitudes and ideas are still being formed. Our work is research-based, building on an anti-bias framework that prevents bullying and teasing by helping children understand our diverse world.
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