ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the effects of the multicultural intervention program Kids' College on children's self-esteem, ethnic pride, prejudice, and stereotyping attitudes. Kids' College is a six-week summer program designed to increase children's understanding of and appreciation for cultural diversity. A goal of the program is to decrease children's prejudices by providing an atmosphere where positive interpersonal relationships with children of different ethnic groups can develop. In 1998, the program studied the following countries: Poland, Japan, Israel, Mexico, South Africa, and the United States of America. Multicultural interventions that have been utilized in the past to increase children's acceptance of one another have often relied exclusively on self-report measures of attitudes, with no behavioral indices of attitudes. The Multi-Ethnic Intergroup Awareness Questionnaire (MEIAQ) assesses ethnic pride, multi-ethnic prejudices, and ethnocentricity. Curriculum-based programs often found in academic settings follow a hierarchical status system based on academic performance.
