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MÁSTER OFICIAL EN MIGRACIONES INTERNACIONALES

TRABAJO FIN DE MÁSTER DEL CURSO ACADÉMICO 2015/16

We are all Humans until...: Children's perceptions of racism and culture

Todos somos Humanos hasta...: La percepciones de los niños y las niñas del racismo

y la cultura

Todos somos Humanos ata...: As percepcións dos nenos e das nenas do racismo e da

cultura

Zeynep Pamukcu

Renée DePalma

Junio de 2016

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Table of Contents Table of Contents ....................................................................................................................... 2

List of Figures and Tables ............................................................................................. 4

Abstract ........................................................................................................................ 5

1. Introduction ............................................................................................................... 6

2. Literature Review .................................................................................................... 10

2.1. Immigration to Spain, Galicia and A Coruña ............................................................ 10

2.2. Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) ............................................................... 11

2.3. The Literature: Racism, ethnocentrism, xenophobia ............................................... 13

2.3.1. Racism and its impact on Spain .................................................................................. 13

2.3.2. Ethnocentrism and its impact on Spain ...................................................................... 16

2.3.3. Xenophobia and its impact on Spain .......................................................................... 18

2.3.4. The Impact of racism, ethnocentrism, and xenophobia on Spanish children ...... 19

2.4. Children’s attitudes toward race as measured by the Doll Experiment ................ 21

3. Research Questions ............................................................................................... 24

4. Methodology ........................................................................................................... 25

4.1. Research context: NGO Equus Zebra ....................................................................... 25

4.1.1. Description of Equus Zebra ......................................................................................... 25

4.1.2. Activities for Children .................................................................................................... 26

4.1.3. Research Participants: Supervisors and Children .................................................... 27

4.2. Participant Observation, Doll Experiment and Interviews ...................................... 28

4.2.1. Participant Observation ................................................................................................ 28

4.2.1.1. Free-Observation Phase ............................................................................... 28

4.2.1.2. Focused-Observation Phase ........................................................................ 29

4.2.1.3. Structured-Observation Phase ..................................................................... 31

4.2.2. Doll Experiment ............................................................................................................. 32

4.2.3. Interviews ........................................................................................................................ 34

5. Analysis .................................................................................................................. 37

5.1. Skin Colour as a Code for Racism ............................................................................. 37

5.2. What They Say vs. What They Do ............................................................................. 45

5.3. Culture, Identity, and Group Relations ...................................................................... 50

6. Conclusion .............................................................................................................. 54

7. Bibliography ............................................................................................................ 57

8. Appendix One: Dolls ............................................................................................... 61

9. Appendix Two: Doll Study Rubric ............................................................................ 62

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10. Appendix Three: Children Interview Rubric ........................................................... 63

11. Appendix Four: Supervisor Interview Rubric ......................................................... 65

12. Appendix Five: Doll Study Questions Associated with Participants ....................... 66

13. Appendix Six: Interview Questions Associated with Participants ........................... 68

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List of Figures and Tables Figure 1: A picture about discrimination.

Figure 2: Map of Europe according to Turkey, 2010.

Figure 3: Map of Europe according to Spain, 2011.

Figure 4: Total number of long-term immigrants in Europe 2013.

Figure 5: Foreign population by sex, place of birth and autonomous communities and

provinces, in 2015.

Figure 6: Foreign population by sex, place of birth and autonomous communities and

provinces, in 2015.

Table 1: The detailed weekly schedule of the children in Equus Zebra.

Table 2: Information about selected focus group: Age range 9 to 12.

Table 3: Information about interviewed supervisors.

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Abstract

International migration plays an important role in the global and mobile world that we

live in today. Every country and even community, whether sending or receiving,

experiences the effects of migration differently, depending on their backgrounds and

regional specifications. Moreover, the concerns and experiences of adults and children

are different from each other, so they should be analysed separately. The almost

natural outcomes of migration, especially international are racism, ethnocentrism and

xenophobia, whether intentionally or unintentionally, because of the differences among

people. Through this perspective, I try to see the perspective of minority children

through their experiences and personal ideas via a triangulated methodology of

observations, interviews, and an adaptation of Kenneth and Mamie Clark's 1947 doll

study, which was designed to identify internalized racism in children. Compared with

adults, children's way of processing information and experience at the age 9 to 12 is

different. Thus, in contrast with the majority of the studies, I conducted this study

outside of the school walls, where children's lives are under less control of the

authorities. This study, rather than focus on their grades or success at school, looks at

their life outside. With this focus in mind, the study was conducted in a non-

governmental organization, Equus Zebra, in A Coruña, Spain where I was a volunteer

for a year.

Key words: Racism, ethnocentrism, xenophobia, NGO, minority children, Spain.

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1. Introduction

Figure 1: Retrieved from http://thefreethoughtproject.com/boom-viral-banksy-meme-explains-divided-easily-controlled/

We are all humans until race disconnected us (being Black in the United

States), religion separated us (being Muslim in France), politics divided us (supporting

left or right) and wealth classified us (being rich or poor). As much as they are

separated, simultaneously one can give birth to another. Or better yet in some cases

when certain people serve our purposes, their differences can be invisible; for instance,

the existence of black people in the national teams of the United States.

The picture indicated in Figure 1, which talks more than it shows, is to highlights

the ways in which differences can divide us. Since my study is about the differences, I

wanted you to begin to look from this perspective while you are reading. This thesis

tries to indicate how minority children in Spain label each other and/or create the image

of the other nation, culture, religion comparing to other people through their

experiences. It should not be forgotten that none of us was born racist, Islamophobic,

xenophobic, or biased; the things that shape us are our experiences are the family,

friends, society, and country that we grow up with.

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Emergence of the Topic of the Study and Researcher Perspective

Not being conditioned to the things that have been said or labelled is more or

less impossible in a society that we grow up. Just to show, here are some examples of

Turkey and Spain (see the figures 2 and 3).

Figure 2: Retrieved from http://alphadesigner.com/art-store/europe-according-to-turkey-print/

Figure 3: Retrieved from http://alphadesigner.com/art-store/europe-according-to-spain-print/

Through personal or historical experiences, as a person or society we are inclined to

make generalizations or name the things like countries, nations, events, and so on.

Although these pictures may not be perfectly representing people’s biases, I wanted to

show my point via these maps.

Actually this is how my research began in 2011. This is the year when I left my

country for the first time to Tbilisi, Georgia for a meeting of Turkish-Armenian project of

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AEGEE for a week. Georgia or the old Soviet Union countries are different than many

other countries especially Europe with its political and cultural background and

although the project was between Turkey and Armenia, there were other members of

AEGEE from Slovenia, Azerbaijan, Ukraine, Germany, and Italy. This was not the first

international meeting that I had attended; however, when I was there I felt like I was no

more than my country and I was carrying it with me the entire time, walking, talking,

sleeping, etc.

I realized that there are reasons for me feeling like this. One of them is because

we all were talking about our countries and the position of my country in geopolitical,

social, cultural and political terms is different than others, and Turkish people´s profiles

were different than the expected profile or prejudices, since in the international media

we are mostly represented as Muslims, non-alcoholics, conservatives and wearing the

hijab. The second reason is like the other people in the AEGEE group; I also had

expectations and prejudices that I was not really aware of when I was inside my

country. In 2013, I left my country for six months for an Erasmus study in Lisbon,

Portugal. Everybody prepared me for me for the very likely difficulties that I may come

across in Europe. As much as the responsibility as a representative of Turkey, this time

I also developed defence mechanism for the possible attacks about Ottoman Empire,

Islam, pork, alcohol, Germany, kebap, and European Union candidacy. All of these

passed in a short time because I realized that Turkish people are not the focus in

Portugal, but Brazilians. Then, I began to understand and had the chance to look at

things from the outside. The thing in Portugal was more than not liking Brazilians, it

was basically racist. For some of my classes, I had to do research, so I used this

chance to see whether my observations and the feelings of Brazilians (living in

Portugal) are the same for them or not. Through this curiosity, I conducted a study into

how Brazilian people living in Portugal permanently or temporarily perceive Portugal

and Portuguese people; and how they are perceived by Portuguese people according

to Brazilian perspective. The results confirmed my expectations: Brazilians, whether

permanently or temporarily living in Lisbon, believed that Portuguese people were

biased against them. During those six months, I visited Galicia, Spain several times

and I could not see the same tense relationship among the Spanish and the

immigrants.

In 2015, I came to A Coruña, Spain as a volunteer for one year and this time I

had the chance to see or observe real prejudices, expectations, migrants, migration,

racism, ethnocentrism, black, white, brown, Latin, non-European, Muslim thanks to my

Master´s study and volunteer work at Equus Zebra. My expectations were almost

completely falsified because in my eyes Spain was a pure and a saintly country in

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terms of racism, discrimination, ethnocentrism and xenophobia (as if it were possible

for the entire society to be the same without prejudices or on the contrary could

welcome everybody even when we have our differences among us). Consequently, I

decided this time to see the perception of minority children in Spain since they are one

of the most important parts of migration both as affecting and affected.

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2. Literature Review

2.1. Immigration to Spain, Galicia and A Coruña

Spain is the one of the most attractive countries for migrants with many reasons

like language and job opportunities among the European Union countries as it is

indicated in the Figure 4, total number of long-term immigrants in Europe 2013

(Eurostat, 2013).

Figure 4: Total number of long-term immigrants arriving into the reporting country during the reference year, 2013 Report. Retrieved from www.ec.europa.eu/eurostat

According to Instituto Nacional de Estadísticas (INE), Spain hosted 4.729.644

immigrants in 2015 (see Figure 5). Each autonomous community of Spain has its own

reasons and characteristics in terms of distribution of the migrants. Although Galicia

hasn’t hosted as many immigrants as Catalonia or Community of Madrid, there were

90.641 immigrants in Galicia in 2015 (INE).

31%

15%

14%

12%

10%

7%

6%5%

Germany

France

Italy

Spain

Poland

Romania

Netherlands

Belgium

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Figure 5: Foreign population by sex, place of birth and autonomous communities and provinces, in 2015. Retrieved from www.ine.es

Some immigrants choose Galicia due to its geographic position (see Figure 5),

which is being close to Portugal and Galician language, which make Galicia reachable

especially for Portuguese speakers and job opportunities related to sea like fishing. A

Coruña is the second largest city of Galicia and it has been a home to 32.480

immigrants, which means almost 30% of the total migrants in Galicia (see Figure 5 and

6).

Figure 6: Foreign population by sex, place of birth and autonomous communities and provinces, in 2015. Retrieved from www.ine.es

2.2. Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs)

Nowadays, non-governmental organizations have been gaining importance in

many ways for the societies and the states or governments especially in Spain (2007,

Ortiz, Cobo, Giraldo, and Mataix, p.16). In other words, they can be thought as coping

74%

26%

GALICIA Coruña, A

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mechanisms, when and where the governments cannot reach or not effective enough.

For the societies, they are the mediators for many kinds of reasons since most of the

NGOs have been established on the basis of helping somebody or something such as

environment, children, violence and migrants. According to my subject, I will focus on

NGOs for migrants in A Coruña.

Of these, related to my subject I will focus on NGOs for immigrants, their role

and importance, and their place in European Union (EU) and A Coruña, Spain. In the

literature, it is more common to find studies, books or articles related to the rights and

conditions of migrant workers and the role of NGOs related to this. Nevertheless, the

article “Lobbying for migrant inclusion in the European Union: new opportunities for

transnational advocacy?” of Andrew Geddes gives us a general view about the role of

NGOs for migrants, which are to combat with racism and xenophobia, helping to the

immigrants with social integration and assisting them as much as possible with their

needs (2000). Although most of the NGOs for migrants have common aims in terms of

racism, xenophobia and social integration, not all of them have the same support such

as donations and funding; hence, helping the immigrants with their needs may change

from organization to organization. For example, Equus Zebra supports the immigrants

with food through donations as well as supporting children with activities and classes;

however, this is not a necessary aim or characteristic of NGOs for migrants.

In A Coruña, there are approximately 15 NGOs working with and for migrants1.

Some of the most well known are Ecos de Sur, Accem, Juan Soñador and Equus

Zebra. Like most of the NGOs for migrants, they also share the same and biggest aim

like preventing racism and xenophobia, helping social integration and assisting with

needs. In my opinion, being established by an immigrant and being able to change and

develop according to the needs of the period and society, are what make Equus Zebra

different than the other NGOs. Equus Zebra was established for immigrants and later it

opened its doors to everybody with the economic crisis in 2008; whereas, some of the

others like Cruz Roja and Caritas, began for the general population, but now includes

immigrants among the collectives served. Unlike most of the NGOs because of this,

Equus Zebra is a meeting point and can also be said that the first step of integration

both for the locals and immigrants since it offers services for all. Moreover, I think both

the immigrant and the local users are free from religious biases or expectations

because Equus Zebra does not have religious ties like a church or any other religious

community founded or dominantly funded by any. All these characteristics of Equus

Zebra, as much as being a volunteer for a year there, constituted the reason why I did

1 I found no official source for this data. I consulted with Verónica Verdía, based on her current research Project.

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not select or search for any other NGO to conduct my research. In addition, I did not

think about doing this in a school since I was mainly focusing on the relation among the

immigrant children.

2.3. The Literature: Racism, ethnocentrism, xenophobia

I reviewed the literature by focusing on various aspects because my research is

mainly about the impact of racism, ethnocentrism and xenophobia among minority

children in Spain. Majority of the studies that have been conducted relating to racism,

ethnocentrism and xenophobia are about immigrants or minorities and host society

relations. Since my attention is on the children, this narrows the literature circle a little

bit. Moreover, looking at relations among minority children rather than the relation,

adaptation, integration, assimilation or segregation of minority children to the host

society makes the circle even narrower.

In this narrow circle of literature, the studies related to these concerns and

concepts among minority children have been done from different disciplines, or

approaches. The majority of the literature consists of sociological and psychological

approaches. Besides these, there are also some studies made by anthropologists.

Historians studied racism, ethnocentrism and xenophobia through their historical

evolution as a concept, perception and act. Nevertheless, studies from different

disciplines are relatively limited in terms of the impact of racism, ethnocentrism and

xenophobia among minority children in Spain, which is as mentioned one of the most

important host countries.

Through my observation and experience during the period that I was in Spain, I

realized the importance of the relations among minority children. I saw the issues

among these children especially regarding some specific characteristics like skin

colour, culture, religion, and language; thus, I decided to focus my attention on the

impact of racism, ethnocentrism and xenophobia.

Even though these concepts are closely related with each other and even

sometimes nested, I tried to divide my literature review into four parts in the following

paragraphs, which are the impact of racism, ethnocentrism, and xenophobia on

Spanish in general, and their impact on Spanish children.

2.3.1. Racism and its impact on Spain

When I decided to do my research about racism, I began to review literature by

searching the definition and approaches of racism. Like there is not only one approach,

also there is not only one definition of racism. The major difference among the

definitions and approaches is that some only includes unchangeable characteristics of

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the human being such as skin colour and some includes both changeable and

unchangeable characteristics such as culture, language, religion, traditions and

physical characteristics of ethnic groups. During the literature review, I realized that the

reason of this alteration among definitions and approaches generally occurs from the

cases or events that academicians or scientists work on. Consequently, I believe the

definition or approach to racism can be adaptable according to the case worked on or

perspective looked from; thus, I searched for an emic perspective rather than using one

of the definitions in the literature by asking to the participants.

I will give some of the well-known or mostly used definitions and approaches to

racism in this paragraph and why I could not use these word for word. The Cambridge

Dictionary of Sociology defines and relates racism with the overall relations of

domination and subordination between groups that flow from the hierarchical

structuring of a given society based on racial distinctions (Turner, 2006, p.491). The

Cambridge Dictionary of Psychology defines racism as “an irrational belief that some

group of people identified as a race is in many ways inferior to another group of people

which largely ignores within-group variance and is resistant to contrary information”

(Matsumoto, 2009, p.420). Since most of the racism related studies and researches

have been made from the sociological and psychological perspectives, for this

research I believe these two definitions are worth to mention. As we can see, the way

that psychology and sociology handle racism is different from each other.

Just as the dictionary definitions vary according to the academic perspective,

the approaches and sometimes definitions of sociologists, psychologists, historians and

anthropologists vary among each other. For instance, Garner from a sociological point

of view defines racism as a “multifaceted and fluid pattern of social relations” (2004,

p.19). Another sociologist, Guillaumin, claims that “racism is a specific symbolic system

operating inside the system of power relations of a particular type of society” (1995,

p.30). Allport, one of the most famous sociologists working on racism, lead us to think

racism as the result of ignorance and misinformation (as cited in Kealy, 2007, p.16).

The psychologist James M. Jones notes that “Racism results from the

transformation of race prejudice and/or ethnocentrism through the exercise of power

against a racial group defined as inferior, by individuals and institutions with the

intentional or unintentional support of the entire culture” (as cited in Ponterotto, Utsey

and Pedersen, 2006, p.16). He also divides racism it into three forms, which are

cultural, institutional and individual racism, because he thinks that racism is rather

complicated to examine from one perspective or with one definition (2006).

George M. Fredrickson, who is one of the well-known historians in terms of race

and race related studies, writes in his book Racism, (2002, p. 170) that “Racism exists

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when one ethnic group or historical collectivity dominates, excludes, or seeks to

eliminate another on the basis of differences that it believes are hereditary and

unalterable.” Another important definition is from the anthropologist Ruth Benedict,

“Racism is the dogma that one ethnic group is condemned by nature to congenital

inferiority and another group is destined to congenital superiority” (1943, p.97).

When we look at the literature in terms of the context of racism in Spain, the

common idea among different studies is that although Spain’s relationship with racism

goes years back with the history of Latin America, racism in Spain is not popular or

problematic comparing to other European countries, or it can be said that not with Latin

Americans at least. According to According to the report on the evolution of racism and

xenophobia in Spain published by the Ministry for Employment and Immigration in

2010, the attitude of the Spanish people toward Latin Americans is less negative

compared to other minority groups (as cited in Arango, Brey, Maldonado and Moualhi,

2011). For instance, Van Dijk, a specialist in discourse analysis, defines “racism as a

system dominance, of power abuse, reproduced by social practices of discrimination

and sustained by ideologies shared by dominant ethnic groups” (2008, p.92).

Furthermore, he claims that “Spain is the country in Europe where racism is ´the least

radical and widespread since there is no political party or newspaper promotes racism´.

According to the Ministry for Employment and Immigration (2010), the attitudes of the

Spanish population towards migrants from 1993 till 2009 can be grouped in three ways,

which are tolerant, ambivalent, and adverse (as cited in Arango, et al., 2011, p.7-9).

From 1990s to 2009, the tolerant attitudes increased and adverse attitudes decreased

towards immigrants (2011). This, as it is suggested, may be another indicator of why

racism is not a popular subject in Spain. Moreover, Díez-Nicolas interprets the surveys

carried out at the end of the 1990s: Spanish people generally considered immigration

to be a positive phenomenon, indicating, at the same time, a low degree of racism (as

cited in Arango and Finotelli, 2009).

Although the general view of Spain looks less racist comparing to other

countries, the existence of Gypsies, Africans, Arabs and Moroccans and the negative

attitude, or for some cases it can be named as racism too, against them cannot be

denied. For instance, the report of Spanish Ministry for Employment and Immigration

found out that the negative feeling or attitudes towards immigrants are generally for the

Romanians, Africans and Moroccans and Muslims (2011, p.9). The report of ENAR

(European Network against Racism) summarizes the situation of Gypsies in Spain:

Although Gypsy community has been in Spain for hundreds of years, they still have

been suffering from racism; but also since most of them accepted the discrimination,

they no longer speak about it. In addition to this argument, the report also calls

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attention to the division of Spanish Gypsies and foreign Gypsies. Unfortunately, foreign

Gypsies suffer a double discrimination, both as Roma and as foreigners (p.2). Another

study called: Tying Racism in El Ejido to Spanish and European Politics, draws

attention to how lives of Moroccans is affected by both policy (at the Spanish and

European level) and racism (Caro, 2001). Through these and similar studies, we can

see the impact of racism of Spain especially in terms of Moroccans, Gypsies, and

Muslims; nevertheless, in the big picture most of the studies claim that comparing to

other cases or countries, racism does not play an important part in Spain. Furthermore,

the surveys and studies focusing on racism in Spain generally focus on the relation

between Spanish people and immigrants or minority groups rather than the relations

among minority groups, which actually is my focus.

All these definitions, studies, and approaches to racism involving minority

groups depend on the academic perspective, focus, and context from which they

derive. For example, immigrants living in Barcelona may not be suffering from the

same aspects of racism as those living in A Coruña, and children experience racism

differently than adults. Especially when we are talking about children, I believe we need

to access their perceptions and feelings to be able to understand the issue from their

point of view. Even though there are some definitions or approaches in the literature

regarding children’s way of experiencing racism, I believe the background of the

children such as country of origin, age, and the host country plays an important role;

thus, instead of using a general definition, I decided to ask children about what they

understand by racism.

2.3.2. Ethnocentrism and its impact on Spain

Ethnocentrism, unlike racism, is a term that different disciplines and

academicians define or approach approximately the same way. Although it is hard to

separate racism and ethnocentrism from each other, I at least will try to define them

independently during the literature review section. Similar to racism, ethnocentrism has

been studied mostly by sociological and psychological perspectives, which are also the

ones that I will use for this study. Before discussing these perspectives, I would like to

talk about the emergence of ethnocentrism as a concept. Sociologist William Graham

Sumner, generally accepted as the coined of the word ´ethnocentrism´, defines it as

“the technical name for the view of things in which one's own group is the centre of

everything, and all others are scaled and rated with reference to it” (1906, p.15).

The Cambridge Dictionary of Sociology presents three ways of approaching

ethnocentrism. One of them is that “a dominant ethnic group with power will intervene

in conflicts among other groups only when its perceived interests are at stake”.

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Ethnocentrism seems, therefore, to be “a naturally occurring attribute of ethnic groups

who will engage rival groups with unusual ferocity when their sense of ethnic privilege

is threatened” (Turner, 2006, p.175). The second approach to ethnocentrism is “the

seemingly universal cultural habit of considering one’s own ethnicity unique, and thus

in some sense – or several senses – special” (2006, p.175). Third one is that

ethnocentrism describes the vicious cycle of inter-group relations by which differing

ethnicities respond to contact with each other by claiming a natural superiority for their

own cultural practice, hence for themselves as a people (2006, p.176). For my

research, the most relevant approach is the first one because I assume that children

cannot have the idea that their nation is superior to another for no reason behind at

such a young age. For them, when one of their characteristics is challenged, such as

skin colour or religion, they feel like they need to defend themselves and their group.

The Irish Sociologist, Mac Gréil, through his research defines ethnocentrism as

“prejudices against a person because (s)he is perceived to belong to a particular

nationality or culture” (1996, p.11). For this reason, I wanted to understand what

children see as nationality and culture.

The Psychology Dictionary defines ethnocentrism as “the nearly universal

tendency to view the world and to judge others primarily from the perspective of one’s

own in-group culture”. In addition to this, ”ethnocentrism often entails the overt or

covert belief that one’s in-group is the most important group and its culture is superior

to those of other groups”. In psychology, the concept of ethnocentrism has been

applied to research in marketing, consumer behaviour, and organizational behaviour as

well as in analysis of ethnic conflicts (Matsumoto, 2009, p.186-187). From the

psychological perspective, I will only focus on the analysis of ethnic conflicts rather

than behaviour of consumption or institutional organizations. Frances E. Aboud (1987),

psychologist at the McGill University, claims that ethnocentrism is “an exaggerated

preference for one’s group and concomitant dislike of other groups” (as cited in

Ponterotto, Utsey and Pedersen, 2006, p.13).

As we can see, approaches and definitions of ethnocentrism are mainly

focusing on the people´s perception of other cultures comparing to their own. In this

study, I question ethnocentrism from the children´s point of view, like I suggested for

racism. I try to understand if ethnocentrism for children emerges because of their

perception of Spanish people and culture, or because of the pressure of Spanish

society such as pushing the idea of Spanish people and/or culture is superior to other

nations in terms of skin colour, behaviour, and culture.

Fredrickson (2002) suggests that “racism is the twin of ethnocentrism”; basing

his argument on the approach of French Philosopher, Taguieff, that “race can be

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described as what happens when ethnicity is deemed essential or indelible”. The

relation among them is undeniable. One way or another, when ethnocentrism emerges,

racism follows it. I assume for this research that for children at the age of 9 to 12 it is

not easy to differentiate racism from ethnocentrism, religion and culture. From this point

of view, I will try to find out how they perceive ethnocentrism through the interviews.

As indicated in various studies: Tying Racism in El Ejido to Spanish and

European Politics (Caro, 2001), Gender and ethnocentrism in borderlands (Tordjman-

Nebe, 2010), Migrants, Minorities and Education (Luciak, 2004), Responding to Racism

in Spain (ENAR); ethnocentrism exists in Spain especially with respect to Gypsy

communities and Muslims. With way of living, culture and language Gypsies follow a

different path compared to the dominant community and culture, including the

importance that they gave to education for their children. In addition to this community,

if we accept religion (Islam for the Spanish case) as a part of ethnocentrism, which is

generally related; we have to talk about the ethnocentric or negative attitudes of

Spanish people toward Muslims such as Arabs, Moroccans and Africans mostly

because of their religious practises. Like I mentioned before, in these cases it is hard to

differentiate racist attitudes from ethnocentric and xenophobic attitudes, so I will give

further differentiations concerning xenophobia and its impact on Spain in the following

section.

2.3.3. Xenophobia and its impact on Spain

Xenophobia, unlike racism and ethnocentrism, is an ancient word and practice,

which was invented by the ancient Greeks to describe a reflexive feeling of hostility to

the stranger or ´Other´ (Fredrickson, 2002, p.6). According to Cambridge Dictionary of

Psychology, xenophobia (literally) is an abnormal fear of strangers or people from

different countries, cultures, subcultures, ethnicities, social classes, or any other

identifiably different social group. In both humans and other animals, it is often

associated with territoriality, and those perceived as intruders are met with hostility and

sometimes physical aggression (Matsumoto, 2009, p.584).

In addition to the experience of the people, there are other factors in terms of

understanding or measuring the level, effect and significance of xenophobia in a

society. Media and press is one of these factors and one of the most important studies

have been carried out regarding Spanish people´s way of seeing racism, ethnocentrism

and xenophobia is about media and press. Through his studies related to racism and

the press in Spain and its effect on racism, ethnocentrism and xenophobia, van Dijk

suggests that it is rare to find the explicit xenophobic sensationalism in Spain that we

may find in the other countries such as Britain (2008, p.66). Besides media, the other

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important tool that gives us the idea about Spanish people´s xenophobic attitudes

towards immigrants is survey. There are population surveys conducted by Spanish

Institutions such as Spanish Ministry of Labour and European Union Institutions in

order to understand where Spain and its people stand about the subjects of racism,

ethnocentrism and xenophobia. According to the survey of Spanish Ministry of Labour

in 2005, most Spanish people repudiate racism as well as existence of xenophobia (as

cited in Arango & Finotelli, 2009, p.36). The special survey on racism and xenophobia

by the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia and carried out by

INRA (EUROPE) – E.C.O. in 2000 show that the Spanish respondents feel least

disturbed by the presence of people of another nationality, race or religion; moreover,

among all the other European Union countries Spain and Italy seem to have the lowest

levels of xenophobic fear (Arango et al., 2011).

However, if we are looking to the subject of xenophobia in detail for Spanish

case, I think we need to divide the phobia part into at least two parts, Islamophobia and

Negrophobia, since the Spanish prejudices or xenophobic attitudes do not apply

equally to all immigrants or foreigners; for example, research show that they have more

positive attitudes toward Latin Americans (Ministry for Employment and Immigration,

2010). By dividing it, here actually I want to take the attention from xenophobia to

racism and ethnocentrism, where I talked about them not as xenophobia, but

separately. Thus, in terms of literature that we can look is the same with racism and

ethnocentrism since they are closely related, but named differently or sometimes

together in the mentioned literature above.

2.3.4. The Impact of racism, ethnocentrism, and xenophobia on Spanish children

Majority of the researches and studies on minority children in Spain have been

conducted in schools or through education system mainly by education researchers,

sociologist and psychologists. The main reason for this is because the studies mostly

focus on the success of minority children in Spanish schools. With this aim,

academicians or researchers try to evaluate the children´s success through the study

materials, language, racism, xenophobia and Islamophobia. Moreover, there are not

enough studies in terms of various regions except Catalonia because it hosts a

significant number of immigrants; the importance of the subject and the number of the

studies is accordingly higher. For instance, Carrasco focuses on development of

education to all students in an intensive immigrant environment in her article:

´Interculturalidad e inclusión: principios para evaluar la acogida al alumnado de origen

extranjero´ (2005). Another important subject in terms of schools in Spain and Muslim

immigrants generally is Islamic practices such as the usage of hijab. DePalma and

20

López studied this in their article called ´The Hijab and the Integration of the Muslim

Other in Spanish Schools through a significant incident happened in Galicia: the

expulsion of an 11 year-old girl from the school for wearing a hijab (2014). ´Ethnic

minorities and the Spanish and Catalan educational systems: From exclusion to

intercultural education´ written by Bochaca in his article tries to fill the lack in the

literature by focusing on the evolution of educational policies up to the current dominant

discourse (2006). In terms of language and classroom interaction, one of the best

examples is the ethnographic research of Pérez-Milansa and Patiño-Santos (2014)

called ´Language education and institutional change in a Madrid multilingual school´, in

which they focus on the coexistence of Bridging Class (BC) programme with the

recently implemented Bilingual Schools Programme via interviews and classroom

interactions with BC students at one secondary school. Santos Rego is another

important name in his field and mostly he studies about the achievements of the

immigrant children; for instance, the article ´The participation of immigrant families in

school´ written by him and Lorenzo Moledo (2009). Besides these studies, I believe

there is also a need of researches and studies on children’s experiences outside the

classrooms such as neighborhood, centers like Equus Zebra and also relations among

immigrant groups, not just with the majority.

To summarize, I believe none of these, racism, ethnocentrism, and xenophobia

comes to the light all by itself without any reason. At the end, nobody was born racist,

ethnocentric or xenophobic. People grow these feelings and attitudes up through their

experience, politics, friends, family and media. Although I talked a little bit about the

importance of media in the literature review part, unfortunately I cannot talk about the

significance and effect of each factor like media and politics for this study. Yet, I will try

to focus on friends and experience of the children for this research. When I am

searching on these kinds of subjects, I prefer to start with children because I believe

one of the most important ways to contribute to the literature or society is beginning

with children since they are the tomorrow’s mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, friends,

husbands and wives. We as scientists of the society and education have the chance to

change the children of today so that we can contribute for tomorrow.

Without understanding how or what children feel and experience or how they

deal with things, I assume we cannot get to the bottom of the issues or problems. This

is the main reason that, rather than trying to fit my data to concepts and definitions from

the literature, I decided to start with children´s way of understanding, experience, and

feeling. When I decided to this, I was thinking that I could get help from the literature at

least to direct some ideas about Spain and Spanish way of racism, ethnocentrism, and

xenophobia, nevertheless, they were not as helpful as I hoped because the majority of

21

the surveys and studies either carried out by Spanish institutions or European Union

institutions indicate that Spain, compared to all other countries does not have an

important number or indication that is a racist, ethnocentric or xenophobic country or

society both in terms of the locals and immigrants except the Roma (Gitanos and

Gitanas) and Moroccans. Furthermore, the existing research related to racism,

ethnocentrism and xenophobia does not study children outside of the classrooms.

There are two reasons why for my research I did not use the literature in terms of these

two groups. One of them is because I do not have any members of these two groups in

my sample. The second reason is that through literature as far as I can see, adults are

in the centre of the studies rather than children.

2.4. Children’s attitudes toward race as measured by the Doll

Experiment

The doll experiments have been one of the most useful tools in terms of

understanding racism, stereotyping, colour preferences and prejudices especially from

the children´s point of view. Although it is a relatively common experiment especially in

the United States for the studies regarding racism and children, as far as I know the

experiment never have been conducted in Spain.

The first doll experiment was conducted by Kenneth and Mamie Clark between

1939 and 1940 in the United States. Kiri Davis, who is an African-American filmmaker,

repeated the experiment and made a documentary entitled “A Girl Like Me” in 2005 in

the US. The program called ´Good Morning America´ in the channel ABC, recreated

the experiment in 2009 in the US. In 2010, AC360 program of CNN replicated the

experiment. These are the famous and some of the well-known doll experiments. In

addition to these, there are several other similar ones, which were conducted in

different countries like Italy, Indonesia, Denmark and Mexico. However, majority of

them did not provide the results as a report, but rather published the videos of the

experiments in YouTube. For my research I decided focus on the Clarks’ and the CNN

version of the experiments, which are also the ones I will talk about in detail in the

following paragraphs.

Kenneth and Mamie Clark's doll experiment, which is the first one, took place in

the US between 1939 and 1940. The aim of this experiment was to see what skin

colour means to young children and how this might be related to growing up in a racist

society. There were 253 participants, African-American children, and their age range

from 3 to 7. For the experiment, Clarks used four identical baby dolls except for the

skin and hair colours, two of them were brown with black hair and the other two were

white with yellow hair (1947, p.169). During the experiment Clarks asked eight

22

questions to the participants, including which was the doll that they like to play with,

nice doll, bad looking doll, nice colour doll, white looking doll, coloured looking doll,

Negro doll, and the doll that looks like the participants. According to the results (Clarks,

1947), the authors concluded that 94% of the participants are aware of the racial

differences. The knowledge of the concept of Negro and racial difference develop from

year to year, especially at the age of 7. The participants who selected the brown doll as

the one who looks most like them are more definite in the knowledge of racial

differences. Statistically, 60% of the participants chose the white doll when the Clarks

asked them which doll is the nice one, 59% of the participants selected the brown doll

in response to the bad doll question. The Clarks observed that the preference of the

dark doll decreases from 3 to 7. The reasons children gave for rejection of the brown

doll included because it is ugly, does not look pretty, black, hasn’t got eyelashes, and is

not clean. The reason for acceptance or preference of white doll were because he is

pretty, white, and clean.

The AC360 segment of the American news program CNN replicated the

original doll experiment in the United States in 2010 (Study: White and black children

biased toward lighter skin, CNN Report, 2010). The participants were composed of 75

black and 58 white and their ages range from 4 to 5 and 9 to 10. 65 of the children are

from 4 to 5 years old and named as early childhood. 68 of the children are from middle

childhood and whose age range from 9 to 10. For the experiment, CNN used drawings

of five identical young cartoon dolls or children that differ only in their skin tone. The

cartoon characters are arrayed from the lightest skin tone to the darkest skin tone. The

boys´ version consists of five identical cartoon characters dressed in blue shirts and

blue pants and the girls´ version consists of five identical cartoon characters dressed in

blue dresses and wearing blue bows in their hair. Like the Clarks’ study, CNN asked

several questions to the participants; some of the questions were the same as in the

earlier study and also they added the questions, which are smart, dumb, mean, good,

ugly, good looking, the one they wish as a classmate, like to be friend, skin colour as

they wish, skin colour they do not want. Furthermore, they added speculation questions

like what the participants imagine to be the skin colour that others (boys, girls, adults

and teachers) like and do not like. All the material and questions were the same for

both of the groups. The results show that light skin colour cartoon dolls represent

positive attitudes and beliefs, whereas dark skin colour dolls were associated with

negative attitudes and beliefs by the participants. In addition to this, light skin colours

also were selected as self-selected and preferred skin colours similar to positive

attitudes and beliefs. There is a slightly difference among the boys’ and girls´

preferences of skin colours, boys prefer light skin colour more than girls; this is the

23

tendency that has been observed in the early childhood participants (Study: White and

black children biased toward lighter skin, CNN Report, 2010).

24

3. Research Questions

1. How do minority children understand key concepts such as race, culture, and

nationality?

2. How do minority children construct difference using cultural characteristics,

such as religion, values, and language?

3. How do children understand and experience racism, xenophobia, and

ethnocentrism?

25

4. Methodology

4.1. Research context: NGO Equus Zebra

In this section, you will find the detailed information about the background of

Equus Zebra, activities for children and the participants in this study, who are the

supervisors and the children.

4.1.1. Description of Equus Zebra

The research took place in Equus Zebra, which is a non-governmental

organization established in 2000 for immigrants and children in A Coruña, Spain by an

African immigrant. The mission of Equus Zebra is that of helping to promote integration

of the people who are at risk of exclusion; especially women, youth and teenagers. The

vision of Equus Zebra is carrying out awareness actions to raise consciousness about

a multicultural society and mutual respect, which Equus Zebra believes is the best way

to live (Equus Zebra, 2016).2 In other words, it can be said that the main goal is to be a

meeting point for the people, both migrants and locals, who are at risk of social and

economic exclusion.

Accordingly, Equus Zebra offers free services like: labour and legal orientation,

classes and workshops. Although Equus Zebra began to serve especially migrants,

nowadays, since the economic crisis in 2008 in Spain, it has been offering all of its

services for everybody who is a member. Specifically for immigrants, there are Spanish

and Galician language lessons; moreover, other classes are offered for everybody like

English, activities like dancing, and legal and labour orientation like psychological and

food service for free. Today, Equus Zebra helps nearly 50 families of its users.

Furthermore, during the school year (September-June) it hosts approximately 50

children, both from locals and immigrants. Equus Zebra has been supporting them with

their homework, an afternoon snack (merienda) and activities such as English,

dancing, fencing, workshops, handicrafts and athletics. All these activities and services

are provided with the help of volunteers and interns, who assume the role of

supervisors. The communication department focuses on raising consciousness via

Facebook, its website, Twitter and brochures that people can reach easily.

Putting in numbers; Equus Zebra had 94 new users in 2015 and in total

approximately it has 2000 users who are from nearly 40 different countries. Moreover,

30 volunteers and 15 interns who are also from different nationalities like the users in

2 I did the translation of mission and vision section of Equus Zebra when I was a volunteer in order to collaborate with a foreign NGO.

26

2015. In this school season, Equus Zebra had nearly 50 children whose ages range

from 5 to 16 and they are also both from immigrants and locals.

4.1.2. Activities for Children

The schedule of the children in Equus Zebra

Hours Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday

16.30

- 17.30

Homework

Session

Homework

Session

Homework

Session

Homework

Session

17.30

- 18.00

Afternoon

Snack (Merienda)

Afternoon

Snack (Merienda)

Afternoon

Snack (Merienda)

Afternoon

Snack (Merienda)

18.00

- 19.30

Dance

Athleticism English

Fencing

Handicrafts

Dance

Athleticism English

Fencing

Handicrafts

Table 1: Detailed weekly schedule of the children in Equus Zebra

The schedule of the children is that they do their school homework from 4.30

pm to 5.30 pm. The following half an hour is for an afternoon snack (merienda) and

from 6.00 pm to 7.30 pm they are taking dance, athleticism, English, fencing and

handicraft classes and activities. This schedule is applied for the children from

Mondays to Thursdays; Fridays and weekends are free for them. The classes of dance,

English, and handicrafts are realized in Equus Zebra. The activities of athleticism and

fencing are in Club Esgrima Coruña and Club de Atletismo Riazor where the children

participate and interact with other children from other nationalities and locals of their

age. Furthermore, when the weather is good sometimes instead of doing inside

activities, the supervisors are taking the children to the playground according to their

attitude.

Except the athleticism, fencing and playground days; children take all the

activities and classes in the same classroom in Equus Zebra. Since the class is bigger

than the size needed to make activities and give courses, it has been divided into two.

In one part of the class, there is a class order with a blackboard and individual desks.

In the other part, there is a big table, at which children sit next to each other and use

during the afternoon snacks and handicrafts activities. For the dance class, we move

the individual desks to the one side of the class and realize the activity in that space.

27

4.1.3. Research Participants: Supervisors and Children

The supervisors

All the activities and classes are carried out under the observation of volunteers

and interns; in short, they can be referred as supervisors. Supervisors constitute an

important part of the research since they are the ones who are responsible for the

children during the classes related to everything about them. The professional

backgrounds of the volunteers and interns vary as well as their period of attendance in

a school year to help children with dance, English and handicraft classes.

Equus Zebra accepts volunteers both from Spain and other countries.

Accordingly, there were volunteers from different professions such as English teachers,

civil servant, high school students, stewardess, sociologists, social educators, and the

nationalities of the volunteers included Spanish, Venezuelan, Peruvian, and Turkish.

Moreover, the period of time that they are assisting is changing; there are some

volunteers that help for years: generally these are from Galicia, but also some come for

a period of time such as two months, one semester, etc.

Equus Zebra also accepts volunteers and interns with the projects like

European Volunteer Service, which is a program that supports young people for

volunteering in different countries of European Union including Turkey. This is also the

program that led me to Equus Zebra as a volunteer. I applied to the project because of

two reasons. One of them is that I am a sociology graduate and I am interested in

migration studies and the other is my intention to learn Spanish and since Spain is one

of the most vivid countries in terms of immigration and emigration, I applied to the

projects in Spain. When I was already in the project with the guidance of the people in

Equus Zebra, I found and enrolled in the International Migration master.

Besides volunteers, interns are another important group of supervisors. They

attend generally for a limited period of time, which is determined by their departments

in order to fulfil internship requirements. Like the volunteers´ profile, interns´ profile

varies either because of Erasmus Internship Program, which allows university students

from European Union do their internships in different European Union countries.

Accordingly, there were interns from different European Union countries such as Italy

and Czech Republic as well as Spain.

The children

There are three groups of children. The first consists of 17 children whose ages

range from 5 to 8. The second group has 18 children and their age ranges from 9 to 12.

The third group is formed by 10 children whose ages range from 13 to 16. In total,

28

there were 45 children from different countries of origin mainly like Senegal, Peru,

Argentina, the Dominican Republic, Bolivia, Uruguay and Colombia.

Although there is a division of age groups both for classes and activities,

sometimes the age groups are combined based on the number of the children

attending that day. This is a particularly common practice for the 5 to 8 year-olds and

the 9 to 12 year-olds.

The group that I focused on for my research is 9 to 12 year-old; I will describe in

more detail the characteristics of this group in the following sections.

4.2. Participant Observation, Doll Experiment and Interviews

In order to conduct my research I used three different techniques, which are

participant observation, doll experiment with children and interviews with children and

supervisors. The names used during the research are pseudonyms in order to protect

the privacy of the participants.

4.2.1. Participant Observation

I began my research by participant observation. The participant observation part

consisted of three different stages. Free-observation phase was the first phase and

where the critical incident happened. Focused-observation phase was the second

phase where I narrowed the age group focus of the research, which is 9 to 12. The last

was structural-observation phase where I further narrowed down the focus of the

research in terms of topics such as racism, ethnic, skin colour, and use of language

and so on.

4.2.1.1. Free-Observation Phase

The free-observation phase began in June 15th, 2015. This is the date when I

started in Equus Zebra as a volunteer via the European Voluntary Service program.

From June 15th, 2015 till February 18th, 2016 I worked in the office in the mornings and

sometimes in the afternoon with the children. Until December 3rd, 2015, I have just

taken notes of “interesting” events, which means the events not common to come

across or unexpected for me in Turkey. Furthermore, I did not separate the children,

users, workers or the volunteers during this phase of the observation. However, on

December 3rd I decided to write my thesis about immigrant children. From this time

onwards, I mostly put my focus on the children and the people or the issues related to

them. The critical incident which initially served to define my research focus also

happened in this phase.

29

Critical Incident

It was the second month of my volunteering when the incident occurred among

three children, Alba, Lorena and Sabina. I was with two other volunteers, Carla and

Sabrina, both from Spain. Like we, volunteers and the children, always do, we were

coming back from the athleticism activity; Alba, Lorena and Sabina whose ages from 9

to 12 were talking to each other at least in the beginning. Later, their sound began to

get louder and the talk turned into an argument. In a moment even before anybody say

or do something, the black girl called Alba was on the ground and Lorena and Sabina –

from Colombia and Bolivia, respectively- whose skin colours are lighter than Alba’s

were kicking her and saying that Alba deserves this because she is black.

In the beginning, as volunteers and responsible of the children we did not

interfere because they joke with each other and out loud all the time, but we were so

surprised when we heard that the issue was about the skin colour and they turned this

issue into an action. After separating them and coming back to the organization, we

talked to Lorena and Sabina to see why they did this and whether they know what they

are talking about or not. The answers were even more surprising than the incident; they

did not have any concrete idea what they were talking about when they were teasing

Alba for her skin colour. However, one of them mentioned that she heard an argument

about this subject in the school. At the end, Lorena and Sabina apologized to Alba and

in the following ten months we did not witness a fight related to this.

In this incident, there are three main significant points, which are their age

range, in general their skin colour, and the subject of the discussion. Their age range is

important because they were not fully aware what they talk about, but they put this into

action by thinking that skin colour is a significant identifier and reason for a fight, a

discussion or an argument. The subject that they fought over is another crucial factor in

this incident. Since most of the students do not have skin colour that might allow them

to identify or be identified as “White”, mostly seem different from the locals and more

look like each other, and they all have origins from different countries such as Senegal,

Dominican Republic, Bolivia and so on; it is interesting that they found the skin colour

as something determining. Consequently, the incident became source of my thesis.

4.2.1.2. Focused-Observation Phase

The second phase is the focused observation. In this phase, I have mostly

worked in the afternoon with the children and have attended all the classes and

activities of the three groups and took field notes in order not to be affected only by the

incident when I was deciding which age group that I will work with from February 22nd,

2016 till March 31st, 2016. During the phase, I eliminated the young group, 5 to 8, since

30

they are too young and mostly focus on games, escaping doing homework or trying to

disturb each other. In other words, they are not in the age of maintaining a proper task.

The other group from 13 to 16 is more responsible and socially aware than my focus

group. For instance, during the dance (salsa) classes they need to dance with partners

and close to each other, but both female and male children trying to respect their space

and not to be misunderstood. Thus, this group is older and more aware comparing to

others, which is the reason I did not select this group, either. At the end, I decided to

work with the group 9 to 12 years old.

This group has been chosen according to two main criteria among the other two

groups of children, which are 5 to 8 and 13 to 16. The first reason is that the incident

happened in this group. The second one is that this group is not too young to be

unaware of everything and not too old to name everything consciously. As we can see

from the incident, they use skin colour as an issue to hurt the other, but they do not

know exactly why this should or could be a disturbing subject. Furthermore, the

children in this age group were trying to control their actions when they have

supervisors or teachers around especially after the incident.

At the end of focused-observation phase, I determined my group as 9 to 12

years old children. The group that I focused on consists of 18 immigrant children. Their

ages range from 9 to 12. This group in the beginning of the research consisted of 17

children, but in March 30th, 2016 a new female child joined and in total they became 18.

According to this, I had 12 female and 6 male children. Five of the students are 9 years

old, four of them are 10, six of them are 11 and three of them are 12 years old. 5 of the

children are from Senegal, 4 of them from the Dominican Republic, 4 of them are from

Peru, 2 are from Uruguay, 2 are from Colombia and only one of them is from Bolivia as

you can see in Table 1.

31

Selected Focus Group: Age from 9 to 12

Name Country of Origin Age Sex

Belén Senegal 9 F

Sabina* Bolivia 9 F

Jose Senegal 9 M

Camilo Uruguay 9 M

Tania Peru 9 F

Rosa Senegal 10 F

Fernando Senegal 10 M

Alba* Senegal 10 F

Luis Peru 11 M

Claudia Peru 12 F

Monica The Dominican

Republic 11 F

Daniela The Dominican

Republic 11 F

Rebeca Uruguay 11 F

Lorena* Colombia 12 F

Antia Colombia 11 F

Frank The Dominican

Republic 11 M

Alberto The Dominican

Republic 12 M

Laura Peru 10 F

Table 2: Information about Children, with children selected for interview and experiment highlighted in boldface. Children who were present during the critical incident are indicated with an asterisk*.

4.2.1.3. Structured-Observation Phase

The structured-observation phase focused exclusively on the 9 to 12 year-old

focal group and was more structured in the sense that I took notes specifically of

observations related to the topic of the critical incident: differences and similarities

among children’s behaviours, relationships, traditions, cultures, and the way of using

language inside and outside of the classes and activities. As well as children,

supervisors´ attitude through children has been observed in this phase. Although I was

a part of my research, I tried to see the supervisors and children in their daily classes

and activities without interfering too much. In this phase, I participated in twenty-eight

classes from April 4th, 2016 till May 19th, 2016 and kept a methodological field journal.

32

4.2.2. Doll Experiment

I based my design on the Kenneth and Mamie Clark's (1947) original doll

experiment, which took place in the US, which I have described earlier. The experiment

was conducted with 253 children and their age range from 3 to 7. For the experiment,

Clarks used four identical baby dolls except for the skin and hair colours, two of them

were brown with black hair and the other two were white with yellow hair (1947, p.169).

There are two reasons why I conducted a similar doll experiment. The first reason is

that I was surprised by the answers of the children during the Clarks’ and subsequent

experiments, because I was not expecting the children to be aware of racism and

discrimination at such a young age, 3 to 10 year-old. The second reason is that by

conducting the experiment, I tried to support the participant observation and in-depth

interview phases, for example, to explore discrepancies between what I saw children

do and what they told me they would do. Besides, these experiments were mostly

conducted in the United States and as far as I know never have been done in Spain.

My recreation of the Clark’s doll experiment was more closely based on the

CNN version, which carried out by the television program called “AC360” especially in

terms of materials that have been used to present to the participants (2010). The major

difference between the original (Clarks) and most of the recreated experiments, and

CNN version is the presentation material. In the Clarks´ and the subsequent

experiments, they used either four or two baby dolls with same characteristics except

the skin and hair colour. However, in CNN version they used five male and female

cartoon dolls with different skin colours and without giving any further physical

characteristics, which you can find in Appendix 1. The reason that I used the same

cartoon dolls is because the dolls do not carry any physical characteristics of any

ethnicity or race except the skin colour, so this prevents the children focusing on

different aspect of the cartoon dolls except the skin colour while they are choosing.

Furthermore, unlike CNN, I presented both female and male cartoon dolls at the same

time instead of showing female dolls to female participants and male dolls to male

participants. The main reason for doing this is the age range of my children participants

because they are older than the other experiments´ participants, I assumed that they

may have different attributes for gender and skin colour relation and I did not want to

ignore that possibility.

I was not only interested in the differences or prejudices through white and

black skin colours, but all the differences in any skin colours the among immigrant

children because in Spain, where my research took place, the immigrants do not only

consist of blacks and whites. Moreover, today most of the people do not only

33

discriminate black people, there are many immigrants from different countries such as

Chinese and Latin Americans and their physical characteristics are also distinctive with

respect to many other countries like the US and Spain.

Each of the children had their own presentation material so that they can write

on it if they want to. Unlike most of the recreated experiments, I did not take a video

recording since I wanted to protect the children´s identity and privacy. Although I

recorded the reactions and answers in my research journal, I also let the children write

what they want on the pictures through series of questions, which were near to the

pictures I gave them in case they do not understand my pronunciation and so that they

can read them, related to skin colour. Different than the original and recreated

experiments, I add one question about religion to see if the participants connect religion

with skin colour since religion is another factor of racism, which I did not think as

important as skin colour or related with skin colour before the observation phase. Also,

another question about guessing the nationality or countries of the cartoon dolls has

been added in order to see if the skin colour means a country or a nation for the

participants. I added this question in the second interview because I realized that I was

assuming participant´s ideas or expectations about nationalities. After adding the last

question, I again met with the first participant to take the opinion about nationalities of

the dolls. You can find the rubric of the doll study in Appendix 2.

The doll experiment was carried out during the structural observations with 12

children out of 18 children before the in-depth interview. Since they are the same

children who gave interviews, the children who participated in the experiment are

indicated in boldface in Table 1. However, one child called Laura did not want to

participate. After she saw the cartoon dolls, she said I am not a racist and I do not want

to do this. Supervisors haven’t been included in this phase of the research since they

already have a perspective in terms of skin colour and racism. The reason I made the

experiment during the structural observation is that I wanted to see if the behaviour and

ideas of the children would change after they had an idea what I am doing and what is

the subject I am searching. Moreover, in order to prevent possible misleading and

prejudices like improving an idea of correct answer, I carried out the experiment before

the interviews. In other words, I did not want them to be affected from the interview

questions when they are commenting on the pictures. All the experiments have been

conducted in one of the empty rooms of Equus Zebra from 2nd of May to 5th of May,

2016 and each experiment took 12-13 minutes.

34

4.2.3. Interviews

Interviews were carried out during the structural observations with 12 children

out of 18 children, but as mentioned Laura did not participate, and 9 out of 15

supervisors. The selection of the participants for the in-depth interview has been made

according to the regular participation of the participants, children and supervisors like in

the experiment phase. There were 12 children who can be described as regular

attendants and 9 supervisors coming almost every day or each week regularly

according to the schedule of the children. The children who participated in interviews

are indicated in boldface in Table 1, and supervisors who were interviewed are

described in Table 2.

Interviewed Supervisors

Name Country of

Origin Occupation

Duration in

Equus

Zebra

Volunteer /

Intern

Eva Turkey English and Dance

Teacher 1 Year Volunteer

Olga Spain Educational

Psychologist 3 Months Volunteer

Carla*

Spain

Classroom Assistant,

Early Childhood

Education

3 Years

Volunteer

Luisa Czech Republic Student

(Anthropology) 2 Months Intern

Sabrina* Spain Teacher 3 Years Volunteer

Elena Venezuela Teacher 5 Years Volunteer

Paula Spain Stewardess 5 Years Volunteer

Silvia Spain Civil Servant 2 Years Volunteer

Alberto Italy Student

(Educational Sciences) 4 Months Intern

Table 3: Information about interviewed supervisors. Supervisors who were present during the critical incident are indicated with an asterisk*.

I conducted face-face, individual interviews because one to one conversations

were helpful especially for the children to express themselves without any judgment or

restriction around. I have also used this method for the volunteers and interns in order

to see their point of view and compare their perspective with children´s on the subject.

The reason that I conducted the interviews first with children is that since my major

focus was on the children, I wanted to see first their perspective. Later, when spoke

with supervisors, besides their perception, observation and experience; I also put the

35

emphasis on the issues that children raised so that I can see the differences on the

same subjects. All the interviews have been conducted in Equus Zebra in one of the

empty rooms and each interview of the children took approximately 15 minutes and has

been carried out from 2nd of May to 5th of May, 2016. Interviews conducted with

supervisors took about 10 minutes and have been made in the second week from 9th of

May to 12th of May, 2016.

The reason that the interviews have been made during the structural

observation is I wanted to see whether the behaviour and ideas of the children and the

supervisors would change after they had an idea about the subject that I am working

on. By doing in this way, I had the chance to see if their ideas and actions consistent

with each other in general before and after the face to face interview because I believe

that even though our minds answer in a rational way to the questions during the

interviews, our actions are not as rational as our minds during the interactions, in the

class within the groups.

The interview was semi-structured because rather than strict answers, I needed

to see the reasons behind the answers of the participants especially children. The

questions have been shaped mostly according to the events and experiences during

the participant observation phases. In general, I have tried to focus on understanding of

racism, whether racism shapes the relations among children or not, the importance of

language, their perception of nations, cultural differences, and religious differences.

However, during the interviews I faced with some problems such as some questions

were not clear enough for the children and in that moment I had to change the way of

two questions and omitted one of them: these changes are indicated in the rubric in

Appendix 3. During this phase, another problem was related to the definitions of the

concepts like racism, culture, nationality because, unlike in general what I expected,

participants could not relate the concepts with words or definitions. Some of the

participants gave example events to explain and for some I had to explain with an

example. For instance, I asked them what comes to their mind when I say culture. The

majority of the children were just looking to my face without an expression, so I said

them that I will give them some words and they will choose the ones that they think are

related to culture and the words I used were music, history, skin colour, religion, dance,

food, country, language, and clothes. I used the same way to clarify and help the child

when I came across a problem.

For the supervisors, the questions have been designed mostly to compare the

children´s view with supervisors´ as well as to understand their perception about

racism, culture, religion and language since they do not interfere so much in the

36

conversations and discussions among the children as long as it does not turn into an

action or an argument. You can find the interview rubric of supervisors in Appendix 4.

37

5. Analysis

We all have our differences sometimes they are visible like skin colour,

sometimes they are invisible like how we feel about the others or religion and

prejudices. In this section, I will try to analyse the findings that I have gathered through

observation, the doll experiment and interviews with participants, children and

supervisors. Hence, I divided this section into three subsections, which are ´Skin

Colour as Code for Racism´, ´What They Say vs. What They Do´, ´ Culture, Identity,

and Group Relations´.

As much as skin colour, the age of the participant children also plays an

important role since these kinds of studies, especially doll experiment, are not so

popular with the age group 9 to 12. I assume that it is mostly because in this age range

it is generally accepted as children´s cognitive skills are developed enough to

understand or differentiate the concepts like racism and their way of behaving, as

suggested in the book, The Psychology of Prejudice and Discrimination (Levy,

Rosenthal and Herrera-Alcazar, 2010, p.39-40). As you will see in the following

sections: although they are aware of the differences, they are not fully conscious or in

control of the definitions and their behaviour. Consequently, this study gives an

impression of children at the age range 9 to 12 that suggests that they should be

included in race related studies. I believe their perspective and position are as

significant as the younger age groups, 3 to 5 and 5 to 8. (This para. may go another

place, but I do not know where yet.)

Before I begin the analysis, I would like to give the motto of this research: “I am

not a racist”. The interviews with the children began with the doll experiment, and the

first thing they saw was the cartoon dolls. As soon as they glanced at these images,

the majority said the motto.

5.1. Skin Colour as a Code for Racism

The doll experiment was mainly designed in order to understand and see the

ideas, prejudices, labels and tendencies of the participant children regarding ´others´,

in terms of skin colour and racism, nationality, and religion. This part was conducted

before the interview section in order not to condition the children with the words like

racism because in the doll experiment, there is not any question containing the words

related to the subject of the research in general. To see the effect of skin colour,

referring to the cartoon dolls I asked which was the smart, bad, nice, dumb, beautiful

and ugly child among five different skin colours and two different sexes/genders. If I

divide the characteristics that I asked as positive and negative, the majority of the

38

participants hesitated or were unwilling while they were selecting the negative ones,

which are bad, dumb and ugly. There were also some who did not want to answer

some of these questions because they claimed that it is meaningless that one of them

could be bad, dumb or ugly without a reason. However, they did not argue the same for

the smart, nice and beautiful doll questions. Through this, it can be said that

participants are looking for something, experience or reason to label that person as bad

whereas labelling the good does not require a reason. Although they have experienced

things regarding the skin colour or differences, this does not inspire them to generalize

a nation or a group of people in a negative way for now. There is a fixed group or way

of expectation that some people are good, but the expectancy of that group to be bad

is less likely in general.

Beginning with the short questions adapted directly from the Clark’s and the

CNN doll study, I will first analyse children evaluations (bad, dumb, ugly, smart, nice

and beautiful). The numbers indicate the skin colour, which you can find in the

Appendix 1. Briefly, 1 is for the lightest skin colour and 5 is for the darkest skin colour.

The results can be analysed in two categories, Latin Americans and Senegalese3

because sometimes the answers of these two groups are similar and sometimes

different, but in most of the cases it can be observed that they show similar tendencies

within their group. Moreover, physical characteristics of the two groups are similar to

each other in each group except some slight differences in Latin Americans. In other

words, all the Senegalese participants tend to have very dark skin colour that

corresponds to the darkest doll (5) while the Latin Americans tend to appear more

similar to the dolls ranging from 2 to 4.

First, I will analyse negative characteristics. When I asked participants to

indicate the bad doll, Latin American participants indicated the first and second dolls

while the Senegalese participants chose the fourth doll as the bad one. This result is in

a way surprising because the participants selected the dolls closest to their skin colours

as a bad one. The dumb doll question was refused by two of the Latin Americans,

Colombian and Bolivian; thus, it may be said that they resist the underlying premise of

racism that value judgments can be made based on skin colour. Three of the four

Senegalese participants selected as dumb, the dolls with lightest and second-lightest

skin colours, but only one of them considered the fifth, the darkest doll, to be dumb (As

you will see in the next section, only one out of the four Senegalese children chose the

doll with the darkest skin colour as the one that looked most like her). The ugly doll

question, similar to the dumb one, was refused by the three, participants (one

3 The only children from the continent of Africa were from Senegal (4).

39

Senegalese, one Dominican and a Bolivian). For the rest, the answers varied between

the first and third doll.

Secondly, the positive characteristics of the dolls will be analysed. Except one

of the Latin Americans, all the other Latin Americans pointed to the third doll as the

smart one and the different answer indicated the fifth doll. Two of the Senegalese

selected third while the other two thought first doll is the smart one. The answers of the

Latin American participants to the nice doll questions were exactly consistent with

smart child. Nevertheless, Senegalese were more diversified in their answers by

indicating second, third and fourth dolls. The tendency was to select the fourth doll as

the beautiful child, but children also selected the first, second, third and fifth dolls.

According to this result, there is no common answer among the groups. Although the

Senegalese participants are black and the Latin American group could be described as

having second doll and fourth doll skin colours, they generally tried to stay away from

extremes like the selection of the first and fifth doll for this part of the experiment.

Another question was about racial self-identification: which one of these dolls

they think looks like them. All of them put their arms near to the dolls to find the ´correct

answer´. Normally, it is assumed that under these conditions, they will find the most

similar one; nonetheless, there were misrepresentations. Three Senegalese out of four

said that they look like the fourth doll whereas their skin colours are similar to the fifth

doll. Only one of them directly pointed to the fifth doll. Four of the Latin Americans

showed the dolls which looks like them. Another two demonstrated dolls with one skin

tone darker than theirs. The last participant, from the Dominican Republic, pointed to

the doll that was a tone lighter than his skin colour. For the Senegalese, these results

can be interpreted as partial denial; however, they are not extremely far away from the

reality. Latin Americans who identified themselves one tone more than the normal can

be explained through their nationality identification of the dolls, which I will describe in

more detail later, when I analyse responses to the nationality question. They claimed

that the first and the second dolls might be Spanish, so perhaps none of them were

inclined to self-identify with the same dolls that they thought of as Spanish.

The other question was: which one of these dolls they would prefer as a

classmate. For this question, the answers were mostly consistent with their self-

identification. Furthermore, the reason that they gave to justify their answer was to be

able to defend themselves with one more person who is like them when there is a

problem regarding to their skin colour or country in the school. For instance, Claudia, a

12-year-old Peruvian, talked about an incident where she was in a position to defend

her country. During an argument one of her classmates said that Peruvians are ugly

and speak Spanish in a strange way; she claimed that if she had one more person like

40

her, she could defend or explain the difference in a better way. Alba, a 10 year-old

Senegalese, gave a different explanation, claiming that for the things related to her

characteristics like skin colour, language, and religion, if she has one more person like

her, it is a plus for her. In addition to this, she adds that she feels more comfortable

when she is talking in her language, Wolof. The interesting point here for me is that she

was born in Spain and can speak Spanish at a good level according to her age;

moreover, she knows English and French at an elementary level, but she prefers to

speak Wolof instead of Spanish.

A set of questions was prepared to see children participants´ perspective of the

society’s vision. Accordingly, I asked them which doll that most of the boys, girls,

adults, and children like and do not like. Except the questions related to children, the

results did not show any consistent answer neither within the two groups, as Latin

Americans and Senegalese, nor across all the children. For the doll that they believe

most children would like, they all agreed on the first and fourth doll. For the doll, most

children would not like, they pointed to fourth and fifth dolls. Other questions varied

from the first doll to fifth doll except the third doll. Here, it is important to note that while

for the first set of questions (bad, dumb, ugly, smart, nice and beautiful) children did not

concentrated on the lightest and darkest dolls, for this set (social preference questions)

they were more likely to indicate these dolls especially the questions regarding what

children would like and not like.

Until here, the questions were the same as those used in the Clarks' and CNN

studies. However, the results were different and I think there are two reasons for that.

One of them is that unlike these two studies, mine was conducted in Spain with older

children than these two studies´ participants and accordingly the perspective of the

participants was different. Secondly, I tried to see the differences among minority

children not just in terms of black and white, but across a rather wide range by

including as much as possible the diversity of skin colour, age, and origins represented

by the children of Equus Zebra. In contrast to the Clarks' and CNN studies, my

participants did not give reasons like dirty, ugly, and not pretty for the dolls with dark

skin colours and being bad, ugly and dumb was not related by the participants with any

kind of negative attributions. Unlike the children who participated in the earlier studies,

the children stated that negative characteristics are not easy to associate with the dolls

since there is no valid reason for that kind of selection.

Apart from the questions derived from the Clarks' and CNN, I added questions

about religion, nationality and preferred daughter or son. The main reason for this is

that these represent important characteristic differences between the minority groups of

the US and Spain. For instance, religion and nationality questions were asked to

41

understand children's awareness of these issues and the possible stereotyping among

different minority groups. This may not seem significant for the US African-American

minority group studied by the Clarks and by CNN because of less internal

diversification, especially in terms of religion.

I requested from the participants to write the possible religions of the dolls. This

may not seem important in the sense of the doll studies for the ones conducted in the

US such as Clarks and CNN, since the majority of the African-Americans who

participated belonged to the Baptist Church; in other words, the majority are Christian

(McAdoo, 2007, p.97). However, as much as skin colour, religion also plays an

important role for the Spanish society and its minorities; it is just another mediator to

differentiate one from another. Another reason for asking this question is because

during every afternoon snack with meat, the Muslim children ask whether there is pork

inside the sandwiches or not. After this repeated dialog, I wanted to see if this

experience leads children in Equus Zebra to stereotype Muslim people in any terms; for

instance, that all the Muslims are Black. Thus, I supposed that this characteristic may

create ´a type´ for them among minority children. Before I discuss the results, I want to

talk briefly about the terms that the children used for the dolls, which are Christian and

Catholic. Participants used these two terms and I believe when they were saying

Christian, they were also meant Catholic and vice versa because they are not able to

differentiate.

When we come to the possible religion of the dolls, only three participants, a

Uruguayan, a Bolivian and one Peruvian, said that the fifth doll, the darkest, can be

Christian or Catholic, whereas the other eight participants claimed that they are

Muslims. For the fourth doll, only Senegalese children gave the possibility to be

Muslim, and Latin American participants indicated that the fourth doll is Catholic. For

the third doll, third out of the four Senegalese said that the doll is Jewish. All the Latin

American participants said that the third doll is Catholic. The first and second dolls with

the lightest skin colour were thought as Catholic by the all children without exception.

Although these results are natural to come across regarding to their entourage

and experience, I believe there are some missing points that the participants either do

not know or could not think at that moment. At those ages, 9 to 12, religion, unlike skin

colour is more invisible characteristic of any person. The only sign or symbol of Islam at

that age and environment are possibly hijab (through Moroccans) and pork (both

through Moroccans and Senegalese especially in Equus Zebra). My questions also

came out through the environment and academic publications such as the article of

DePalma and Lopéz (2014). The religions that they attributed to the dolls are according

to skin colours, which makes me question what about the Moroccans? I am almost

42

sure that they are aware of the existence of Moroccans - and Moroccans, different than

the Senegalese people, mostly use hijab and their skin colour is different.

Nevertheless, none of the participants took into account these differences and thought

about the possibility of other colours to be Muslim.

My analysis of this data is also based on corresponding observation data. On

April 18th, 2016 during the English class, Belén, a nine year-old Senegalese girl, asked

me where I am from and what the religion of my country is. I said I am from Turkey and

the common religion in my country is Islam. After the answer, she hugged me and

asked if I would please teach Turkish instead of English. This happened long before

the interviews and again none of them made reference to this conversation when they

were guessing the religions of the dolls. According to their responses, although they

have the knowledge of other skin colours that might be associated with Islam, the

dominant idea is the strong relation between the darkest skin colour and religion.

Another important aspect of these results is case of the Bolivian and Uruguayan

children, who associated all skin colours with Christianity. This is significant because

they personally witnessed the dialogs related to food (at least) during the afternoon

snacks in Equus Zebra. These results from the doll experiment indicate that they never

questioned the reason of not eating pork. Furthermore, since none of the children gave

a reason why any doll can be Muslim, Christian or Jewish, I cannot make a comment

about their perception of skin colour and being Jewish. However, it is important to note

that only Senegalese children considered the possibility of being Jewish.

The next question that I designed for this study is: The possible nations of these

dolls. Although I was so sure that participants would know what nation is and what

country of origin is and the differences among these because from my perspective it

seemed like it is the basic thing to know, since even they were born here, their parents

mostly were born in different countries; nevertheless, I was wrong. In order to see

whether I am the only one thinking like this, I asked the supervisors what they think

about children´s knowledge of nationality and all of them said that children do not know

what nationality is although children can sense the meaning. Realizing this in the

beginning caused me to change the phrasing of some questions during the interview

phase. For this question, when they asked me what I am trying to say, I began to list

examples like Spanish, Portuguese, and Senegalese. As soon as they understood

what I meant, they stopped me from continuing the list.

However, while they were writing the possible nations of the dolls, I realized that

they did not understand or lost their focus because, for instance, instead of writing

Senegalese, they wrote Africa or African and in some cases instead of Spanish, they

wrote name of the cities or countries such as Madrid, A Coruña, and Senegal. The

43

participant from Uruguay claimed that the fifth, darkest skin colour, doll is from India.

Apart from this child, all the children assigned the darkest doll to Africa, Senegal,

Nigeria and Cameroon. The possibility of Nigeria and Cameroon came from the

Senegalese participants while Africa and Senegal were indicated by Latin Americans.

For the fourth doll, the Senegalese children said that the doll can be from Senegal or

the Dominican Republic. On the other hand, Latin Americans, Colombian, Peruvian,

Dominican, Uruguayan, and Bolivian selected Argentina, Colombia and Panama,

Ecuador and Argentina, Latin America and Brazil respectively. For the third doll, the

Colombian participant said Spanish, the Peruvians said Peruvian, Senegalese said

Iraq, Algeria, and Peru, the Dominican said Dominican, Peruvian and Bolivian, the

Uruguayan said Argentinian, and the Bolivian participant said Peruvian. The second

doll represents for Colombian, Peruvian, Senegalese, Dominican, Uruguayan and

Bolivian participants, respectively: Spain, Bolivia, Spain and China, Spain and the

Dominican Republic, Russia and England. The first doll with the lightest skin colour

was associated with Spanish people, except for the Peruvian and Senegalese

participants. One of the Peruvian girls, pointed to Turkish people as well as Spanish,

and two of the four Senegalese participants attributed this doll to either China or Spain.

The analysis of the relation among religion, skin colour and nationality attributed

to the dolls was complicated by the fact that the children do not have a command of the

meaning of nationality and country of origin. When I ask them where they are from, or

what their country of origin is, they always reply “I am from Spain, I was born here”. I

was expecting that they would tell me where their family is from, but actually this

reflects a cultural difference between Turkey and Spain: in Turkish, country of origin

relates to the family rather than the individual. I changed my strategy when I discovered

this, so I then asked where their parents are from. Asking like this is the only way that I

can reach to the answer. Although they think in this way, they could not assume the

possibility of being Black and Spanish. Similarly, the possibility of being Spanish and

Muslim was not taken into account by the participants. All except one of the

participants said that the fifth doll is from Africa and Muslim. Moreover, only

Senegalese children said that fourth doll can be from Senegal or Dominican Republic

and Muslim, whereas, all the Latin Americans thought that the fourth doll can be from

Latin America.

When we come to the relation between nationality and self-identification

because not all the participants used their nations or country of origins to identify the

nationality of the dolls, for some I cannot see whether there is a different kind of

interpretation between self-identification and the doll identification from their

perspective. The Colombian child said the third doll can be from Spain and she did not

44

use Colombia for the identification of the dolls, but also she pointed to the third doll as

similar to herself. Even though she thinks that she looks like the third doll, her skin

colour is more like the second doll. Both Peruvian participants thought that they look

like the third doll and they also labelled the third doll regarding nations as Peruvian, so

for their case there is a clear consistency unlike the Colombian girl. One of the

Dominican participants selected the second doll as his self-identification, but he looks

more like the third doll; however, both of the Dominicans, who selected the second and

third dolls as their self-identifications, matched their self-identification and nations of the

dolls. Like the Colombian child, the Uruguayan also did not name Uruguay as a

possible nationality of the dolls. Although his skin colour looks like the third doll, which

he identified as Argentinian, he selected the fourth doll as Latin American for the

possible nationality and self-identification. The Bolivian participant selected the third

doll for the self-identification and she did not select Bolivia as a possible nationality for

any of the dolls, but the third doll she identified with Peru. Three of the four Senegalese

children said that they look like the fourth doll and only one of them chose the fifth doll

for the self-identification, and all claimed that the fourth and fifth dolls may be from

Africa, Senegal, Cameroon, and Nigeria. The three Senegalese look like the fifth doll

and I was assuming they made a partially unreal self-identification; however, the

nationality answers, are consistent with their self-identification answers even though

their skin colour is darker than that of the fourth doll.

In both in the Clarks' and CNN studies, researchers asked children which one of

these dolls they would like to play with. Instead of this question, I asked which one of

these dolls they prefer to be their child. The reason is that the majority of the

participants of the earlier version of the studies were young; thus, it is more appropriate

for them; however, for my participants´ age range, this question is too simple or not

interesting enough. During the analysis, I will put the possible nations that they

associate with the doll in parentheses after the doll they would like to have as their

child. The Colombian participant would like to have a child like the second doll

(Spanish) and her appearance also looks like the second doll even though her self-

identification was the third doll. The Peruvians, whose answers were the most

consistent, selected the same doll with self-identification, nationality and as a child they

prefer, the third doll (Peruvians). Three of the Senegalese participants chose the fourth

doll as a self-identification and two of them wanted to have child like the third doll (Iraq,

Algeria, and Peru) while the other selected the fifth doll as a preferred child. The other

Senegalese, who chose the fifth doll as a self-identification, would like to have a child

like the fifth doll (Senegalese or African). Although there are slight differences among

the preferences and thoughts of the Senegalese children, it is hard to see strong

45

evidence of internalized racism, as there was a clear consistent pattern of negative

correlation between self-identification and preferences. The Dominican participants

would like to have children with the same colour as their self-identification, which are

the second doll (Dominican) and the third doll (Dominican). The participant from

Uruguay believes that he looks like the fourth doll, although his actual skin colour is

more close to the third and he would like to have a child like the fifth doll (Indian).

Unlike the Peruvians, the answers of the Uruguayan participant were not consistent

with each other. Bolivian girl who has the colour of third doll would like to have a child

like the fourth doll (Brazil).

Up to this point, I have tried to analyse the children participants´ perspectives

about themselves and others through the questions designed by Clarks, CNN and me.

Although inwardly the participants knew that the questions or the study was about

racism, there was not any direct question that explicitly referred to racism, or about

ethnocentrism and xenophobia. Moreover, towards the end of the interview, they were

more relaxed because during the first set of questions (characteristics like bad,

beautiful and who likes which doll) they were acting like I was interrogating them and

the last questions were about which dolls they would like for classmates and children,

so their attitudes were less suspicious or more relaxed. When they were talking about

the possible nation and religion of the dolls, I felt like that they were attempting to prove

their knowledge rather than looking to the questions that I was presenting.

5.2. What They Say vs. What They Do

Through the literature review, I said that we need to ask to the children

participants in order to understand their perspective rather than making assumptions or

generalizations. To this end, I asked the children participants what comes to their mind

when I say racism. All of them first stopped and then said they did not know. When I

heard this sentence, I encouraged them by saying that I do not want definitions, I only

want ´some words´ that comes to your mind related to racism. Thus, through this I

found out that although concepts like racism and racist have a place in their active

vocabulary, they cannot define them. However, through this word-association exercise,

they related racism with negative characteristics such as violence, stupidity, badness,

cultural and physical differences, and just one positive reference to equality (the exact

words they used were: Mente criminal, personas malas, violencia, palabra mala, sentir

mal, Negra, color, cosas malas, fea, mal, estúpida, igualdad, otro color, distintos

colores del piel, personas y culturas.

The way that they expressed themselves while describing racism, like the

majority of the people, was associated with negative things or feelings. Unlike the

46

literature definitions about racism through superiority, inferiority, power relation,

domination, subordination, and prejudice, it appears that children of the age range I

studied (9-12) cannot see racism from this detailed perspective for now. This is why I

did not try adapting a definition from the literature. By asking supervisors how they

think children could have responded to the racism question, I was trying to see whether

the supervisors are aware of the children´s reality and perspective or not. This is

important because when the children get into a discussion, argument or even fight, if

they know the way that children see the events, they may be more effective in terms of

interfering or solving the problems. My results show that supervisors predicted the

perspective of the children and added the words, hair, language, culture, migration and

unjust, but also supervisors repeated some of these words in the culture related

question since they are more likely answers for the culture question. Through the

answers I can say that supervisors were able to see children´s point of view.

During the structured-observation phase on April 14th, 2016, an important

incident occurred between the children of Equus Zebra and the other children on the

playground. That is the day that we, Silvia, Luisa and me, took 9 children to the

playground instead of an inside activity. Five of the children were from the 9 to 12 year

group and four of them were from the 5 to 8 year age group. When we arrived there

were not many children and they just played together with everybody in the place. In

approximately one hour more children came and when they were playing, one of the

children on the playground pointed to Belén, who is from Senegal, and said to her

friends, “She has cancer hair.” Belén and the girl began to argue orally and swear at

each other. In that moment, other children of Equus Zebra got involved to defend Belén

and three other children, I assumed that they were Spanish, came to defend the girl

from the playground. At the end, when we as supervisors were trying to take children

back to Equus Zebra (not because of the what was happening, but we needed to go

back since it was time to leave), they did not want to go back. During the walk both of

the groups were shouting each other: "¡Racistas! ¡Vete a tu país! ¡Hija de puta!" When

I asked the children of Equus Zebra, why they are acting like this, they justified their

actions through their families. They said that this is the way that they should act

because others do not know how to talk and their families encourage them to respond

aggressively to these kinds of insults.

This incident helped me in terms of preparing the interview questions. I

arranged the questions of racism mostly and especially related to this incident in order

to see if what they say and what they do are consistent with each other. The questions

related to this incident and racism are: which nations they like and do not like, who they

think experiences racism, whether racism is a problem for them in Galicia or Spain, the

47

importance of skin colour in their daily life and friendships, whether their friends make

jokes regarding their skin colour and nation, how they react when there is an attack on

their specific characteristics like skin colour and nation, and whether they feel more

comfortable in Equus Zebra or school in terms of environment such as friends and

teachers. The questions are directly related to this critical incident, but also to their

responses to the doll study, to see whether their ideas and actions are compatible.

Actually, the data from the observation phase, the doll study and face-face, individual

interviews supported each other and worked harmoniously.

Question 8: Which nations you like and do not like? Why?

This question through the incidents was asked to see if they have prejudices

against any nation at such a young age and if they do, how they constructed the idea

as a ´foreign´ child in Spain. Although in the doll study questions there were indirect

questions relating to these concepts, I wanted to see their reaction to the direct one.

After the incident, I thought it is important because this is not the first time they

experienced that kind of a problem as we can understand from their reactions during

the incident. Although I was thinking that they would count Spain among the countries

that they do not like, it was exactly the opposite for all of the participants. The majority

focused on the Far East, especially China, and the reasons for that are because they

eat dogs and cats, and, in their words, "all the bad things happened there" They did not

elaborate on this and I chose not to insist on further explanation because racism is

already a delicate subject, and I did not want to scare them away from answering the

following questions. However, I speculate that, there is a possibility that they are mixing

the Far East with the Middle East, which is represented in media and popular discourse

in negative terms especially nowadays.

The participants from Peru pointed to Syrians, Senegalese and Moroccans.

One of them, Tania, explained in detail why she chose these nations. She selected

Syrians because they are bad, which she exemplified through her experience on the

street with them and she added that they are always bad with her. Given the fact that it

is not common to come across Syrians on the street in A Coruña, this idea might be

emerged through the media during the period that the European Union and Turkey

were meeting to find a solution to the situation of Syrians. She also chose Senegalese

people because they are problematic in general in terms of language, culture and

religion, and Moroccans because she feels unsecure with them when they are around

and especially their religious side makes her uncomfortable. The Senegalese

participants drew attention to the Roma people (Gitanos); they think that Gitanos are

irritating and in a way scary, like the Peruvians feels with Moroccans. Dominicans said

48

that they do not like Russia, but they could not give a reason for that. The participant

from Uruguay does not like Argentinians, but he only said I just do not like them.

As a result of the answers, it is obvious that they feel more uncomfortable or do

not like or have prejudices against other nations rather than Spanish people (host

society). In Turkish we have a proverb for these kinds of cases: A Senegalese guest

does not want a Peruvian guest, and the host, Spanish, wants none of them. The

children´s comments reflect the first part of the proverb; maybe if we ask the Spanish

people, they will not want any of them.

Question 2: Who experience racism?

Although some of them gave direct answers, some just could not understand

the question, so to help I gave some examples such as young people, adults, blacks,

children, whites, Muslims, Senegalese, Dominicans. The Peruvian girl said: People like

us (outsiders), Black adults and some children of colour. Senegalese participants:

Young people, adults from other countries, black people, Muslim, and Peruvians. The

Bolivian participant claimed that only Africans experience it. Participants from the

Dominican Republic, Colombia and Uruguay claimed that nobody experience racism.

Through this question, I tried to see their vision of the ´other people´ and themselves.

For this study, the result shows that the Senegalese, the Bolivian and the Peruvians

are the ones who gave straight answers. The responses that they gave through the doll

study and the interview seem to coincide with my observations: most of the participants

first speak from their own experience. For example, Senegalese participants´ answers

related to what they experience in the society like the "cancer hair" incident and the

Peruvian girl who said that other people think that they are ugly and speak strange

Spanish. When she says that "people like us" experience racism, it is hard not to

remember that incident.

Question 12: Do you think racism is a problem for you in Galicia/Spain?

Except Tania, the Peruvian girl, all the others said that racism is not a problem

in Galicia or Spain. This was the most astonishing result for me especially after the

critical incidents that I experienced together with the participants Belén, Claudia,

Sabina, Alba, and Frank. The result also made me question again the understanding or

perception of racism from their perspective. However, I think there are three possible

reasons for this apparent inconsistency. One possible interpretation is that what the

children name as racism, when it is asked them as a direct question, is not really what

racism means to them. The second one can be they did not want to express or say

directly Spanish people are racist. The third possible reason is who they attribute as

racist is not Spanish people, but ´the others´ who live in Spain, like people from the

49

nations that they do not like. I think the third possibility is the most likely because

through the study they did not show any clear negative opinion of Spanish people.

Question 13: Do you think skin colour is important in our daily lives or

friendships?

All without exception agreed on that skin colour is not a determining factor in

their daily lives or their friendships. However, the incident that directed me for this

research and my observations seem to contradict this result. Although it might not be

significant in terms of friendships from their perspective, I believe skin colour has an

impact on their daily lives. In order to further investigate this question, I asked the

following two questions.

Question 16: Do your friends make jokes about your nation and skin colour? If

yes, is it normal for you?

Only Claudia, a twelve year-old Peruvian girl, said yes some “friends” are

making jokes about her way of speaking Spanish and saying that Peruvians are ugly,

which are the same reasons why she gave for wanting a Peruvian classmate (in the

doll study question). She also added, "sometimes, it is normal," explaining that she got

used to hearing these although she does not like them. On the other hand, all the other

participants said ´no´. The answers to these questions became another indicator of

how what they experience and what they say differ.

Question 17: When people say something about your skin colour or any kind of

differences of yours, how do you prefer to react? Or is there a way of reaction that

somebody suggested to you?

Recall that during the ´cancer hair´ incident, when I asked Belén why she

reacted aggressively, and I said that there should be another way to deal with these

kinds of situations, she claimed that yelling and swearing at the people who attack is

normal (legitimate) because they (others) need to understand the differences, and her

family also suggested that she act in this way. Based on this incident I asked whether

racism affected their lives and whether friends made jokes about skin colour. With the

exception of the Peruvian girl, all the participants, especially the Senegalese, denied

the effect of skin colour in their lives or jokes related to their nations and skin colour. So

when I asked them what their reaction would be in the case of such comments, I was

logically expecting that they would say no, since they denied having these problems.

However, most responded just the opposite this time. The Colombian girl said she cries

as a result of such attacks. One of the Peruvian girls did not want to answer; however,

the other, Claudia, said she gets angry and responds by making similar insults

regarding the countries of people who attack her. One of the Senegalese boys,

Fernando, said that he prefers to say ´We are all equal´.

50

Belén, the Senegalese girl from the ´cancer hair´ incident, said she feels

offended and angry. According to her, say things like "Negra de mierda" and that when

the black people die, nobody will understand they are dead because dead people wear

black and nobody will be able find the body (since both body and the clothes are

black). However, she did not talk about her parents´ permission or support for yelling or

swearing. Another Senegalese girl said that she gets jealous. The other Senegalese

boy claimed that he does not have problems like this. Maybe, personally he does not

experience this because he is a popular child among his friends in general; however, I

suppose he has witnessed these kinds of problems. In any case, there is a possibility

that he did not want to answer this question. The Dominican boys, the Bolivian girl and

the boy from Uruguay did not claim anything, just said that they do not face these kinds

of problems. Whether they participated in the critical incident or not, the participants

who did not want to answer the other questions related to racism and incidents were

more flexible and talkative for this question.

Questions 20 & 21: Where do you feel comfortable in Equus Zebra or school?

Which one is more like home? How do you feel about your teachers in Equus Zebra

and school?

These questions were to see their perspective of Equus Zebra and how it is

different than school. Except for the participant from Uruguay, Camilo, they all claimed

that Equus Zebra is more like home. When I asked them to explain, they described

Equus Zebra and the teachers (supervisors) in terms such as sympathetic, happiness,

comfortable, solidarity, good people and equality among all; whereas, school was

described with one word, fine (bueno). Although this part requires a different and a

deeper investigation, for this study I believe how they think about Equus Zebra was

important and I wanted to understand especially regarding the relations and events

both with the supervisors and among them.

There are many possible ways to interpret children's answers to interview

questions and the fact that the answers that they gave and the way that they act are

obviously different from each other; such as denying, internalizing, ignorance, or

reluctance to broach the subject of racism. Unfortunately, this is a problem that I cannot

solve or find given the limited scope of this study. Nevertheless, identifying these

inconsistencies provides interesting directions for further study.

5.3. Culture, Identity, and Group Relations

Culture is another concept, like racism, that I wanted to understand from

participants´ point of view and it is the concept that they could not define at first sight.

Even though I encouraged them by saying that I did not need a definition, but rather

51

simply associated words; they could not say anything. Hence, to find a solution I gave

them a set of concepts, which were music, history, skin colour, religion, dance, food,

country, language, and clothes. Language, music, religion, skin colour, country, history

and food are the ones that the majority of the participants thought related to culture.

Culture here is another significant subject of the study since it is hard to separate

racism and culture in the sense of differences. Like in the racism question, by asking

supervisors how they think children could have responded to the culture question, I

was trying to see whether the supervisors are aware of the children´s perspective or

not. This is important because when the children get into a discussion, argument or

even fight, if they know the way that children see the events, they may be more

effective in terms of interfering or solving the problems. Supervisors predicted the

perspective of the children and responded with: religion, food, languages and

something related to country.

In this section related to culture, I will describe three important arguments

among the Equus Zebra children that emerged during my observations. One of them is

about the legality of hitting women and children, which took place during the afternoon

snack on April 13th, 2016. One side there were Frank, an eleven year-old Dominican

boy, and Camilo, a nine year-old Uruguayan boy, and on the other side there were two

Senegalese girls: nine year-old Belén, and ten year-old Alba, The girls were saying that

hitting women and children is normal and that men have the right, that is, it is legal in

Spain. The boys were saying are you girls are crazy of course it is not legal, women

are important. Although the girls were born here, speak Spanish, have attended school

in Spain since the beginning and know what equality is through Equus Zebra through

the events against violence etc., I suppose their point of view on the subject may have

come from their experience in their home and community. As a person looking at the

subject from outside, for me it was amazingly shocking seeing that the ones who

defend the respectful treatment of women were males and that all the people in this

conversation were born in Spain and grew up in the Spanish society. Nevertheless, it

appears that their values were mostly shaped in the home or community, since the

education, culture and values begin in the family.

The second argument happened on April 20th, 2016, there was a drawing

competition and they were checking the magazines to draw something from there.

Camilo saw a picture and turned to Belén and said: you will wear black dress when you

get married because you are black. While he was saying this, his tone and manner

suggested that he was just making small talk with Belén, but as soon as Belén heard

this she said to him, "You are racist, you do not know anything." Her reaction to

Camilo, however, was different from her reaction to the "cancer hair" incident in the

52

park, which involved children that she did not know. Rather than being angry, she said

these sentences in a tone that implied teasing about his lack of knowledge, and then

calmly she explained that they do not wear black dress for the wedding. Framing the

arguments as a fight or not in these two cases seems to be dependent on the

relationship with the ´other´ - whether that person is considered an insider or outsider

to the social group. They do not turn the arguments inside the Equus Zebra group into

fight, but more like a joke and closing the subject. However, with others from outside,

they are more aggressive and do not take the arguments as smooth and calm as the

Equus Zebra arguments.

The third argument was observed on April 26th, 2016 during the handicrafts

class, Senegalese children began to talk in Wolof. All the children were sitting together

around the big table and when Camilo heard this, he said I do not understand anything,

in which language are they talking? I was surprised because it is not the first time that

Senegalese children spoke in Wolof; they generally do this when they do not want

somebody to understand them or when they are making inside jokes. In a way, To me,

it seems like they use the language as a sign of superiority and a defence mechanism

when they come across situations that they cannot answer, like when the supervisors

say something that they do not want to do. Although these conversations in a different

language, specifically Wolof, are common, Camilo seemed to realize or at least

mention it for the first time in this incident. Later, the language differences were

discussed in general by the children at the table. When Camilo was leaving, he said

thank you to the people, because I learnt something today. From this, it can be

interpreted that they may not understand everything that they hear or see.

Question 23: When do you prefer to use your language?

Related to the last conversation, although I observed the usage of language, I

asked this question, which does not apply to all the participants, mainly for Senegalese

people and one of the Peruvian girls. All the Senegalese children claimed that they

prefer to use Wolof with their families and friends who can speak the same language.

Like I mentioned above, my observations suggested that they do not use Wolof only to

share their feelings freely or comfortably in their mother tongue, because all were born

here and their command of Spanish is good enough to get into any kind of

conversation and to take classes in the school. For example, they were teaching and

correcting my Spanish all the time, this is another indicator that they trust their

knowledge of Spanish. However, in the middle of the class when they got angry or

were not happy with some situation, they immediately changed the language even if

they were talking to themselves. Furthermore, during the English classes, I realized

that Senegalese children´s knowledge of English is much better than the others.

53

Through this, I asked them if they know any other language, they said their parents

know English, French and Spanish, so at different levels they have knowledge of other

languages because their families from time to time speak in different languages even

though both the families (according to children) and the children generally prefer to

speak in Wolof. Claudia, a twelve year-old Peruvian girl, said that she speaks Spanish,

but her mother and uncle try to teach her Quechua, which suggests that her family at

least considered their language as part of the culture to be preserved.

Question 14: Do you think religion plays an important role in your daily life? Like

friendships, conversations, eating habits, judgements by others.

When Latin Americans heard the first part of the question, they directly said yes

it is important, but when I said like what, what changes in your daily life because of

religion, they said: No, it does not affect our lives in that way. For the Senegalese, they

all focused their attention, as is expected, on the pork, food. I asked whether there is

anything else than pork, but they did not mention any other difficulty that they come

across in their lives. In these ages, unlike skin colour, religion is more invisible; thus, it

may be difficult to identify by the children in terms of a motive for discrimination.

Nevertheless, I asked because for the children in Equus Zebra, it can be important in

different ways that I could not see. Moreover, comparing the way of applying or

practicing religion, as a person coming from a country where the majority of the

population is Muslim, I suppose the answer to this question might be different from that

of a Moroccan, Palestinian or any other Muslim majority. Furthermore, I strongly

suspect that the level of concern would change with age, because at this age it is

simpler such as only not eating pork and usage of hijab. However, there is a possibility

that talking with women and men of different ages about religious obstacles, the

answers could include tattoos, mosques, alcohol and so on.

Question 16: Do your friends make jokes about your traditions, religion, or

culture? If yes, is it a normal thing for you?

During the interviews, this question was one question including the concepts,

nation and colour, but in order to avoid confusion I will analyse here separately the

component parts. Although there were arguments related to language, wedding dress

and gender perception, which are the ones that I witnessed in particular, participants

did not think these incidents as something negative, joke, attack, as with the racism

related questions. Therefore, they did not refer to them as an answer of this question.

However, it is important to note and remember here that the incident happened in

section above was between Equus Zebra children and the playground whereas the

arguments given in this section were among the Equus Zebra children; thus, there is a

possibility of difference of value judgement.

54

6. Conclusion The world from the perspective of children is different from that seen by adults

in any terms. This is especially important if we are talking about racism, which is a

critical subject more for the minority children rather than the host society's children

since they grow up in between worlds in terms of colour, culture, or religion. From time

to time during the interviews, I saw that for some children talking about racism is like a

taboo more than talking about cultural and religious differences. In my opinion, they are

not different at all and they all should be explained and taught to everybody because

like we cannot change the skin colour, we cannot change the culture, value or religion

of a child, either. It might be possible, but why? Why do we need to change instead of

accepting, even the “best nations” have their differences inside from north to south, this

could be even way of cooking a vegetable, there is no need to look too far or seek

more complicated subjects.

This study came out through my experiences and observations, which is why I

decided to write about the perception of minority children who are affected by migration

in Spain. Before I started my literature review, I thought that there would be varieties of

studies conducted and written about this issue. However, related to this subject the

studies are mostly concerned about the improvement of school achievement of the

minority children in Spain, and I found very little research on the lives that minority

children have outside of the school walls, which actually is incredibly significant in

terms of their future and integration into the society that they live in, as my study results

suggests.

Through observations, the doll study and face to face interviews, I had the

chance to see the participants´ point of views especially on the subjects of racism, skin

colour, culture, religion, nation and their interpretation. Although all phases of the study

were correlated with each other, the doll study was mainly constructed on the idea of

how, whether, and in which ways the minority children relate skin colour with other

factors like negative and positive attributions (smart, bad, dumb) nation, religion, and

preferences (classmate, self-identification, children). Considering the fact that the

participants of my study are older children than those who participated in the original

and replicated doll studies, and the questions of my study are also concerned with

more than only skin colour and racism relation, the results are not completely

compatible and comparable in detail. Generally, researchers assume that it is not a

good type of study to conduct with older age groups such as children above eight years

old since their sense of differences have already been shaped. Maybe in a way that is

true because unlike the other doll studies, my study results are not quite the same in

terms of negative and positive attributions of the dolls. For example, in the CNN

55

version, a white child chose a black doll as the dumb one because the doll has a dark

skin colour; whereas in my study, most children asked ‘why’ or ‘how’ questions, for

example, how a doll can be good or bad ´without doing anything´. Nevertheless, the

questions that they doubted more than the others were the ones with negative

attributions. For the older ages, I believe it is important to relate these questions with

other themes such as religion and nation and also complementing the doll study with

other type of research techniques such as observation and face-face interviews, and

then it can be more interpretable and explanatory. The only difficulty that I can think of,

and I experienced this during the face-face interviews and doll study, is that children of

this age group may shut themselves down because of the sensitivity of the subject,

racism. This could be because they are not open to talk about racism and could be

because they feel interrogated or threatened in some way. This is why it can be hard to

ask the “why” parts of the questions.

However, this is the place where observations become useful. This method it is

one of the best ways to complement the gaps left when children did not want to make

an explanation about their choices and preferences. For instance, Belén, one of the

Senegalese participants, claimed that she does not experience any kind of problems in

terms of her physical characteristics during the face to face interview. Yet, in the

observation phase of my study like I mentioned in the analysis section, she and me

witnessed different kinds of incidents together. Thus, along with her answers while I

was analysing, I had the chance to see whether her or any other participants´ true life

experience were consistent with her answers. Through all the phases of this study, my

results indicate that what they experience is not necessarily consistent with how they

interpret and communicate these experiences to me (since I cannot read their minds).

Furthermore, as it is suggested by the academic literature, although they have an idea

about the concepts like racism, nation, religion, and culture, they are not fully aware

them, so this is one of the most important reasons that I see through my study why we

need to study more with this age group.

This study can help in many different ways such as for the future studies on

minority children and both school and outside agencies where they continue to live

outside of the school such as activity centres, kindergartens, houses, neighbourhoods,

parks, sport centres; or institutions like NGOs that provide activities for (both minority

and local) children. For instance, observing children in terms of relations with other

people and children in the playground or park, searching for tendencies and

preferences regarding the people they contact with, the friendships that they establish

in the school and outside, the way of that children perceive the school and the teachers

can be some of the directions for future studies.

56

Research based on Kenneth and Mamie Clark’s original doll study can be used

just simply to improve people´s point of view and perception about the minority children

and how they perceive the things related to differences like race, nation, culture, and

religion that experienced in their different aspects of lives. Through all of these, the

supervisors, teachers, or responsible can be informed since they are the ones who

prepare and control them for tomorrow. Nevertheless, since the needs and interests of

the children have been changing one period to another, these studies should be altered

according to the participants´ characteristics (like age) and the needs of the century. In

a way, today’s children are more aware of the things around them compared to the first

doll study in 1939 and the effect of the age like technology is an important factor in

terms of what makes their vision different than past.

According to European Union research, Spain, along with Greece and Italy, has

relatively low level of racism and xenophobic fear compared to other European

countries (Arango et al., 2011). Nevertheless, Spain should turn its focus on the

minority children in terms of understanding their perspective, lives, obstacles that they

come across, because soon enough these children will be the adults of Spanish

society. If we can understand from today, what functions well or not, it is easier to find a

solution when there is a problem. Nevertheless, in any case history is the mediator that

we look at when there is a problem; in other words, finding the beginning of the

problems so that we can find a better solution. Moreover, it is not easy teaching new

tricks to an old dog, so when we have the chance or when they are young, we should

use it effectively.

57

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divided-easily-controlled/

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8. Appendix One: Dolls

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9. Appendix Two: Doll Study Rubric

Doll Experiment Questionnaire: El Cuestionario del Test de la Muñeca

1. Show me the smart child - Señálame el niño o niña más inteligente

2. Show me the bad child - Señálame el niño o niña mala

3. Show me the nice child - Señálame el niño o niña buena

4. Show me the dumb child - Señálame el niño o niña idiota

5. Show me the beautiful child- Señálame al niño o niña guapa

6. Show me the ugly child - Señálame al niño o niña fea

7. Show me the child girls like the most - Señálame al niño o niña que más

gusta a las niñas

8. Show me the child boys like the most - Señálame al niño o niña que más

gusta a los niños

9. Show me the child girls do not like - Señálame al niño o niña que no gusta a

las niñas

10. Show me the child boys do not like - Señálame al niño o niña que no gusta a

los niños

11. Show me the child most of the adults like - Señálame al niño o niña que más

gusta a los adultos

12. Show me the child most of the adults do not like - Señálame al niño o niña

que menos gusta a los adultos

13. Show me the child most of the children like - Señálame al niño o niña que

más gusta a los niños y niñas

14. Show me the child most of the children do not like - Señálame al niño o

niña que menos gusta a los niños y niñas

15. Show me the child that you prefer as a classmate - Señálame al niño o niña

que prefieres como compañero o compañera de clase

16. Tell me the possible religions of these children- Señálame la possible

religión de estos niños y niñas

17. Which one of these children do you think look like you? - ¿A cuál de estos

niños o niñas te pareces?

18. Which one of these do you prefer to be your children? Why? - ¿Cuál de

estos niños o niñas prefieres que sea tu hijo o hija?

19. Tell me the possible nations of these children - Señálame la possible

naciones de estos niños y niñas

Note:

Question 19: Added during the second interviews. Later, the first participant was called

back to answer the new question.

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10. Appendix Three: Children Interview Rubric

Interview Questionnaire / Cuestionario

1. Gender. Sexo

2. Age. Edad

3. Country of origin. País de origen

4. Where were you born? If out of Spain.

¿Dónde naciste? Si naciste fuera de España.

5. Have you ever lived anywhere else in Spain besides Galicia?

¿Alguna vez ha vivido en algún otro lugar en España, además de Galicia?

6. What is the most different thing in your home and outside on the street,

school, people?

¿Qué es lo más diferente entre tu casa y fuera en la calle, la escuela, la gente?

7. Where is your best friend from? (Country of origin)

¿De dónde es tu mejor amigo/a? (País de origen)

8. Which nations you do not like? Why?

¿Qué naciones no te gustan? ¿Por qué?

9. Do you visit your home country or country of origin? How often?

¿Visitas tu país de origen? ¿Con qué frecuencia?

10. When I say racism, what comes to your mind?

Cuando digo racismo, qué viene a tu mente?

11. Who experience racism?

¿Quién experimenta el racismo?

12. Do you think racism is a problem for you in Galicia/Spain?

¿Crees que el racismo es un problema para tí en Galicia / España?

13. Do you think skin colour is important in our daily life or for friendships?

¿Cree que el color de la piel es importante en nuestra vida diaria o con tus

amigos?

14. Do you think religion plays an important role in your daily life? Like

friendships, conversations, eating habits, judgements by others?

¿Crees que la religión juega un papel importante en tu vida diaria? ¿Con tus

amigos, conversaciones, comida?

15. What do you think culture consists of?

¿En qué piensas que consiste la cultura?

16. Do your friends make jokes about your nation, colour, tradition, culture? If

yes, is it a normal thing for you?

¿Tus amigos hacen bromas acerca de tu nación, el color, la tradición, la

cultura? En caso afirmativo, ¿es una cosa normal para tí?

17. When people say something about your skin colour, how do you prefer to

react? Or is there a way of reaction that somebody suggested to you?

Cuando la gente dice algo acerca de tu color de piel, ¿cómo sueles reaccionar?

¿O hay una forma de reacción que alguien te dijo?

18. When I say Equus Zebra, what are the words come to your mind?

Cuando digo Equus Zebra, ¿qué palabras vienen a tu mente?

19. How do you feel in Equus Zebra? (Comfortable, obligated...)

¿Cómo te sientes en Equus Zebra? (Cómodo, obligado ...)

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20. Where do you feel relaxed in Equus Zebra or school? Which one is more

like home?

¿Dónde te sientes más relajado en Equus Zebra o la escuela? ¿Cuál es más

como tu casa?

21. How do you feel about your teachers in Equus Zebra and school?

¿Cómo te siente acerca de tus profesores en Equus Zebra y en la escuela?

22. Which activity or class is your favourite in Equus Zebra and school?

¿Qué actividad o clase es tu favorita en Equus Zebra y en la escuela?

23. When do you prefer to use your language? (Insult is the expected answer

here.)

¿Cuándo prefieres utilizar tu idioma?

24. Free from everything; if you created a Facebook profile, how would it be

and in which language you would prefer to do it?

Libre de todo; si creas un perfil en Facebook, ¿cómo sería y en qué idioma

prefieres hacerlo?

25. Let´s say we will play a game, but you need to create a team with 7

people; you have children from Colombia, Senegal, Morocco, Argentina,

Peru, Uruguay, Panama, Algeria and Ghana. Please create a group by

specifying the gender and country.

Digamos que vamos a jugar a un juego, en el que hay que crear un equipo de 7

personas; tienes niños de Colombia, Senegal, Marruecos, Argentina, Perú,

Uruguay, Panamá, Argelia y Ghana. Por favor, crea un grupo especificando el

sexo y país.

Note:

Question 6: Canceled because participants gave answers like furniture and light after

the third interview.

Question 8: Became, which nations you like and do not like? Why?

Question 15: Changed to, what comes to your mind when I say culture?

Question 17: In addition to skin colour, I added or any kinds of differences of yours.

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11. Appendix Four: Supervisor Interview Rubric

1. Gender.

Sexo.

2. Country of origin.

País de origen.

3. Level of education.

Nivel de estudios

4. What is your job?

¿Cuál es tu trabajo?

5. What do you do in Equus Zebra?

¿Qué haces en Equus Zebra?

6. How long have you been in Equus Zebra?

¿Cuánto tiempo llevas en Equus Zebra?

7. I asked the children that what comes to their mind when I say racism.

What do you think they said?

Le pregunté a las niñas y niños que viene a su mente cuando digo racismo,

¿qué piensas que contestaron?

8. I asked to the children that what comes to their mind when I say culture.

What do you think they said?

Le pregunté a las niñas y niños que viene a su mente cuando digo cultura,

¿qué piensas que contestaron?

9. I asked to the children that what nationality is.

What do you think they said?

Le pregunté a las niñas y niños que es nacionalidad,

¿qué piensas que contestaron?

10. Do you think ethnic diversity decrease racism? Why and/or How?

¿Crees que la diversidad étnica disminuye el racismo? ¿Por qué y/o cómo?

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12. Appendix Five: Doll Study Questions Associated with

Participants

Colombia

(1) Peru (2)

Senegal (4)

Dominic (2)

Uruguay (1)

Bolivia (1)

Smart 5 3 / 3 3 / 3 / 1 / 1 3 / 3 3 3

Bad 1 1 / 2 4 / 4 / 4 / 5 × / 2 2 2

Nice 3 5 / 2 4 / 2 / 3 / 3 3 / 3 3 3

Dumb × 2 / 1 2 / 5 / 2 / 1 3 / 1 2 ×

Beautiful 2 4 / 3 5 / 4 / 4 / 3 1 / 4 1 4

Ugly 3 1 / 2 3 / 3 / × /1 3 / × 3 ×

Classmate 2 3 / 3 4 / 4 / 5 / 5 3 / 4 5 3

Look like 3 (2) 3 / 3 4 / 4 / 5 / 4 2 (3) / 3 4 (3) 3

Daughter or Son 2 3 / 3 3 / 3 / 5 / 5 2 / 3 5 4

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Skin Colour with Religion and Nation Association

Country / Number of the

Dolls 1 2 3 4 5

Colombia Catholic

- A Coruña

Catholic -

Lugo

Catholic -

A Coruña

Catholic -

Argentina

Catholic -

Senegal

Peru

Catholic -

Spain, Turkey

Catholic -

Bolivia

Catholic -

Peruvian

Catholic -

Colombia, Panama

Muslim, Catholic

- Africa

Senegal

Catholic -

Spain, China

Catholic -

Spain, China

Catholic, Jewish

- Iraq,

Algeria, Peru

Muslim, Catholic

- Senegal, Dominic

Muslim -

Senegal, Nigeria,

Cameroon, Africa

Dominic Catholic

- Spain

Catholic -

Dominic, Spain

Catholic -

Dominic, Peru, Bolivia

Catholic -

Ecuador, Argentina

Muslim -

Africa, Senegal

Uruguay Catholic

- Spain

Catholic -

Russia

Catholic -

Argentinian

Catholic -

Latin America

Catholic -

India

Bolivia Catholic

- Spain

Catholic -

England

Catholic -

Peruvian

Catholic -

Brazil

Catholic -

Africa

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13. Appendix Six: Interview Questions Associated with

Participants

Colombia

(1) Peru (2)

Senegal (4) Dominic

(2) Uruguay

(1) Bolivia

(1)

Nations like

Spain, France, Brazil,

Australia

Spain, England,

Italy, France

All

Spain, Ecuador, Dominic, France,

Italy

Spain

Spain, Africa, Peru, Brazil,

England, Mexico

Nations dislike

None Syria,

Senegal, Morocco

Gypsies, China

Russia China

Argentina

China Japan

Asia

Racism Violence

Criminal mind, bad people,

violence, differed

culture and colour

Feel bad, bad word,

negro, colour,

violence, equality

Bad things

Bad, stupid

Other colour

People Experience

Racism Nobody

People like us

(outsiders), Black adults,

some children of

colour

Young people,

adults from other

countries, black people,

Muslim, Peruvians

Nobody Nobody Only

Africans

Religion No No Food No No No

Culture Food

Language, food, dance,

music, history

Religion, music, food, language,

history, dance, clothe

Food, music

Religion, language

Country, language,

food

Joke No Yes No No No No

Equus Zebra or School

Equus Zebra

Equus Zebra

Equus Zebra

Equus Zebra

School Equus Zebra