School science textbooks make children more racially prejudiced, scientists find

Learning about genetics in schools may be priming children to hold prejudiced views about different races, according to new research.

Scientists found that when racial language was removed from textbooks, teenagers were less likely to hold racist views about the intelligence of different groups.

Project leader Dr Brian Donovan said the time is ripe for an overhaul of biology education.

His starting point was two widely taught high school science education reference points when discussing genetic diseases - that sickle cell anaemia is common among Africans and cystic fibrosis among Europeans.

“Everyone learns that, and what I found is that when kids learn that they think ‘oh well each group has its own special disease. If each group has its own special disease then everyone in that group must be the same,” explained Dr Donovan. “They start to develop the idea that racial groups are categorically different, which can drive prejudice.”

Dividing classrooms into two groups, he gave one textbooks with references to race, for example explaining sickle cell anaemia was more prevalent in African Americans.

The other group was given textbooks with this language stripped away, simply saying sickle cell anaemia was prevalent in Americans.

Questionnaires and tests given afterwards showed children reading passages without references to race were less likely to attribute intelligence to skin colour or ethnicity.

Dr Donovan, who is based at BSCS Science Learning, a non profit organisation devoted to science learning, said his team do not want to censor biology education.

Instead, they want children to receive more information about the complexity of human genetics and the ideologies driving certain viewpoints.

While sickle cell anaemia is commonly associated with people of sub-Saharan African origin, the study found that the unfortunate side effect of teaching this to children is that they tend to generalise and view different races as uniform groups.

In fact, genomics studies show there is enormous variation within any population and there is not a huge amount of extra difference when comparing people of different skin colours.

“The choice in the study to knock out race is just to understand the impact of leaving it in,” Dr Donovan said. “I don’t think the answer to that question is to take race out, I think the answer is to address the complexities of human difference.”

The team has designed educational interventions that allow teachers to challenge assumptions children may have about race and genetics.

He presented these ideas at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) meeting in Washington DC.

“We need to teach kids that there are people like James Watson and they argue with each other and this is the nature of science,” Dr Donovan said. “We then need to go a step further, and kids need to understand how the limits of our knowledge get distorted by people who are making ideological claims.”