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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Dev. Psychol.
Sec. Social and Emotional Development
Volume 3 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fdpys.2025.1549126
This article is part of the Research Topic The Interface Between Social Psychology and Educational Psychology: Interactional Phenomena in Educational Settings View all articles
Promoting Children's Social Reasoning about Immigration-based Exclusion and Bystander Behavior through Literary Discussions
Provisionally accepted- 1 University of Teacher Education Bern, Bern, Switzerland
- 2 Institute for Pedagogy of Elementary & Primary School, Faculty of Education, Goethe University Frankfurt, Frankfurt am Main, Hesse, Germany
- 3 Teacher and Teaching Quality, Leibniz Institute for Research and Information in Education (DIPF), Frankfurt, Hesse, Germany
- 4 Center for Research, Individual Development and Adaptive Education (IDeA), Frankfurt, Hesse, Germany
AbstractThe current study is the first to investigate the effect of an argument-based intervention about children’s literature on social reasoning about immigrant-based exclusion. With a one-year intervention study, we examined social reasoning regarding inclusion decisions, moral judgments, and various bystander behaviors. A sample of 758 children (Mage = 10.33, SD = 0.68, 48.5% female) from 41 fourth and fifth grade classes participated in the study. The intervention was based on a cluster-randomized control group design and social reasoning was assessed by a social exclusion task with hypothetical intergroup scenarios. Multi-level analyses revealed intervention effects on reducing positive ratings of negatively reinforcing bystander behavior and passive bystander behaviors (i.e. agree with or ignore exclusive group behavior). However, no significant effects were observed for inclusion decisions, moral judgments, and moral justifications. The results are discussed and implications for practice and research are derived.
Keywords: argument-based intervention, children's literature, immigrant-based exclusion, social reasoning, bystander behavior
Received: 20 Dec 2024; Accepted: 07 Apr 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Egger, Gasser, Frei, Preisig, Beißert and Dammert. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Sara Egger, University of Teacher Education Bern, Bern, Switzerland
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