Children and young people can experience prejudice and discrimination

RESEARCH DOCUMENTSBOOK NOTESAP NOTESStudyMode – Premium and Free Essays, Term Papers & Book NotesExplain Ways in Which Children and Young People Can Experience Prejudice and Discrimination.By Navaro | April 2013Zoom InPage 1 of 3Explain ways in which children and young people can experience prejudice and discrimination.

Prejudice and discrimination are linked, however they are different terms, prejudice comprises of preconceived negative thoughts or beliefs about individuals who belong to a particular group, whereas discrimination is bigoted behaviour or action that is motivated by unfair beliefs. Both discrimination and prejudice can take a range of forms and can take place for a multitude of reasons and usually occurs through lack of knowledge and an understanding of diversity, every childcare professional must be conscious of the fact that a child or young person will experience some form of prejudice or discrimination against them throughout their time in school, a child may be discriminated against for any reason; because of their size, the fact that they wear glasses, the colour of their skin or even their hair, religious beliefs, cultural or ethnic tradition.

Children and young people are most likely to discriminate against other children because of the prejudice approach they may hold, these may include not playing or associating with traveller children because it is believed that they are dirty or smelly, a child who has a disability may be assumed to have learning difficulties

All children and young people have the right to be treated equally irrespective of their race, colour of their skin, religion or ability, all children and young people have a need to develop and grow into mature young adults without being exposed to bigotry and discrimination, this can be helped by allowing them to explore and discover other people’s cultures, beliefs and the things around them, in order to do this adults need to educate and teach children to understand and respect other people’s differences and the diversity of the nation. Children and young people learn their attitudes from the grown-ups around them at an early age and we may all have ways of thinking and acting that may seem.