Children's perceptions of social class discrimination: The role of age and situational factors in evaluating fairness

The present study examined 6 to 11-year-old British children's ability to identify and reason about the causes of a teacher's and mother's differential treatment based on a story character's class background. Children rated the fairness of such treatment and reasons about why a teacher or a mother selected a child for a coveted role. Children also completed measures of implicit class bias. Children rated differential treatment as more unfair when a working-class rather than an upper-class child received a negative decision in both vignettes. Older children rated decisions as unfair more than younger children did when a teacher was the perpetrator. Parents' educational level and implicit bias did not predict their ratings of unfairness. Older children attributed discrimination as the most likely cause of differential treatment in the teacher vignette. In contrast, younger children were as likely to attribute the cause of discrimination to being better or putting in more effort. For the teacher vignette, children were more likely to invoke discrimination than other reasons when a working-class child was not selected. The findings are discussed in relation to practical and theoretical implications.