Images of European people in a group of 5–10‐year‐old English schoolchildren

Abstract

This study investigated the conceptions of other European nationals which were held by a group of 5–10‐year‐old English schoolchildren, with particular attention being paid to developmental changes in the cognitive and the affective/evaluative aspects of these conceptions. Two hundred and sixteen children were interviewed about French, German, Spanish and Italian people. Evidence was found to support the proposal that, as more information about groups of foreign nationals is acquired with age, children develop increasingly differentiated nationality concepts composed of clusters of attributes agreed by the children to be characteristic of a particular people. Evidence was also found that affective responses towards foreign peoples can be established prior to the acquisition of factual information about those peoples, and that these affective responses remain relatively stable once they have been acquired. The implications of these findings in regard to the changes which are currently occurring in European human mobility are discussed.