This research theme encompasses projects, research and expertise which assess the impact of textbook and other educational interventions on reducing divisive stereotypes, prejudice, and discrimination. Work may include field studies and experimental methods which test the hypothesis that the potential powerful influence of textbooks moves beyond the individual student, exploring effects within and outside the school, as well as peer influence.
This research theme encompasses projects, research, and expertise that document cases in which the content and delivery of education have been systematically distorted to create divisions between people, communities, or countries. Work may focus on a specific educational system or country, as well as comparative studies which consider a range of school systems or countries.
Refugees as well as asylum seekers, internally displaced persons, and migrants coming from areas of conflict have often encountered extreme forms of divisive stereotypes, based on their experiences with persecution.
What are divisive stereotypes and how do we study them? How do divisive stereotypes relate to prejudice, discrimination, xenophobia, extremism, and mental health? This theme encompasses projects, research, and expertise that improve our understanding of divisive stereotypes, put forth meaningful and operationalizable concepts, advance a set of criteria and tools for their identification and measurement, and help understand their extent. Qualitative investigations might consider how students and youth interpret divisive stereotypes in textbooks and educational media.
This research theme encompasses projects, research, and expertise that highlight examples of divisive stereotypes in textbooks from around the world, written in any language, and which have been used in the past or are being used today. Textbooks may be from primary or secondary school studies and cover the subjects of history, geography, social studies, and religion, as these subjects are critical in shaping young people’s conceptions of themselves and others.