Children are highly aware of social inequalities by the preschool years, and they spontaneously generate explanations to make sense of them. In particular, children tend to intuitively attribute social inequalities to intrinsic differences (e.g., differences in groups’ inborn abilities) rather than extrinsic differences (e.g., differences in groups’ circumstances) – that is, they intuitively engage in essentialist reasoning rather than structural reasoning. Essentialist reasoning is associated with a host of pernicious outcomes for children's friendship preferences, academic motivation, and more. One promising approach for undermining children's essentialist assumptions is to point out the extrinsic causes of social inequalities to children. Of course, in order for teachers to do so, they must have knowledge of these extrinsic causes themselves, which requires significant expertise. A growing body of work finds that education (in disciplines ranging from history to biology) fosters a more structural understanding of social inequalities, which teachers can then transmit to children, either explicitly or implicitly. Thus, children deserve highly educated teachers whose training includes not only crucial teaching- and content-related knowledge, but also the broad liberal arts foundation that fosters a structural worldview. This article reviews the scientific literature on children's explanations for social inequalities and highlights its implications for teacher training.
Rebecca Peretz‐Lange (Tue,) studied this question.