Clinical trial NCT05619523: Developing Inclusive Youth: Promoting Intergroup Friendships and Inclusive Classrooms in Childhood
Official title: An Intervention to Promote Positive Peer Relationships and Reduce Prejudice and Bias in Childhood
Study type: INTERVENTIONAL
Overall status: COMPLETED
Phase: NA
Conditions: Social Exclusion
Prejudice, Racial
Prejudice
Sexism
Peer Group
Keywords: intergroup attitudes
prejudice
bias
sexism
racism
exclusion
classroom intervention
moral reasoning
intergroup friendships
child development
Lead sponsor: University of Maryland, College Park
Sponsor class: OTHER
Collaborators: name: Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD)
First posted: 2022-11-17
Enrollment: 885
Sex: ALL
Minimum age (years): 7
Maximum age (years): 12
Standard ages: CHILD
Accepts healthy volunteers: yes
Allocation: RANDOMIZED
Intervention model: PARALLEL
Primary purpose: BASIC_SCIENCE

Brief summary: The goal of this clinical trial is to test the beneficial impacts of a web based intervention program called Developing Inclusive Youth for children in 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade. The main questions it aims to answer are:

* Does the Developing Inclusive Youth (DIY) program, which is a web-based curriculum tool with a teacher-led classroom discussion, reduce prejudicial attitudes and biases as well as increase intergroup friendships for a sample of 8 -11 year old children enrolled in 3rd , 4th, and 5th grade U.S. classrooms?
* Does the Developing Inclusive Youth (DIY) program lead to grade-related, gender-related and ethnic-related differences regarding reducing prejudicial attitudes and increasing intergroup friendships?
* Does the Developing Inclusive Youth (DIY) program change teacher attitudes regarding the malleability of prejudice, the importance of intergroup friendships, and comfort levels with discussing social inclusion and exclusion experiences in the classroom?

Student participants will take 15-20 minutes to use a Chrome notebook and headphones to access the online tool and the teacher will then lead a classroom discussion lasting 25-30 minutes. The intervention program will occur once a week for eight weeks.

The student outcome measures, given at pretest and posttest, are also assessed with Chrome notebooks while children are sitting at their desks in the classroom. The outcome measures take 25-30 minutes. Researchers will compare children in the intervention classes to children in other classes of the same grade at their school to see if the tool promotes positive peer relationships and reduces prejudice and bias.

Teacher participants will take a 25-minute online pretest and posttest survey in their classroom to assess their theories of prejudice, their awareness of their students' intergroup friendships, comfort with discussing peer social inclusion and exclusion in class, and their awareness of student experiences of exclusion.

Detailed description: A within school randomized control trial intervention design will be implemented to promote intergroup relationships and reduce prejudice in childhood for children between 7 and 12 years of age, enrolled in grades 3, 4, and 5 in U.S. elementary public schools. The intervention students watch an online tool for 15 minutes accompanied by a 30-minute teacher-led classroom discussion. Students in the control condition will be business as usual. There will be 720 students and 36 teachers, reflecting an ethnically diverse population. The outcome measures assess school belonging, peer and teacher classroom support, trait attributions of diverse peers, social evaluations about intergroup exclusion as well as the likelihood of exclusion, and math and science competency beliefs of diverse peers. All teachers participate in a 2-hour training session prior to the start of the school semester. All participating students have active parental consent. All teachers take a survey about their theories of prejudice, awareness of student experiences with exclusion, and strategies for talking about peer conflict in the classroom prior to the beginning of the program and provide their assent. There is high fidelity of the program due to the delivery of the information which is online. There are many steps in place to ensure fidelity of the teacher component which involves leading the classroom discussion. Multi-level analyses will be employed to determine whether the students in the intervention improve in their desire for intergroup friendships and experiences of classroom support relative to the students in the control condition. Novel data will be collected regarding intergroup attitudes held by children across a range of target groups and grade levels. The information from this project is expected to improve peer relationships due to the more positive classroom environment and an increase of social inclusion among peers. All children are expected to benefit by their participation in the program with a goal of improving academic engagement and healthy child development.

Eligibility criteria: For Child Participants

Inclusion Criteria:

* children with parental consent in grades 3, 4, or 5 at participating schools
* be between the ages of 7 and 12 years
* children who need assistance sitting at their desk or reading the text can participate provided that an adult mentor is assigned to them to assist with the protocol

For Teacher Participants:

* teachers of students in grades 3, 4, and 5 at participating schools and who provide assent
* no age limits for teacher participation

Exclusion Criteria:

* school has identified the student as unable to participate due to disability status.

Primary outcomes:
measure: Change in School Belonging Scale
timeFrame: baseline, pre-intervention; change, one week following completion of the 8-week intervention
measure: Change in Classroom Life Scale: Peer Personal Support Subscale Personal Support Subscale
timeFrame: baseline, pre-intervention; change, one week following completion of the 8-week intervention
measure: Change in Classroom Life Scale: Teacher Personal Support Subscale
timeFrame: baseline, pre-intervention; change, one week following completion of the 8-week intervention
measure: Change in Trait Attributions for Gender, Race, & Ethnicity
timeFrame: baseline, pre-intervention; change, one week following completion of the 8-week intervention
measure: Change in High Status Occupation Expectations
timeFrame: baseline, pre-intervention; change, one week following completion of the 8-week intervention
measure: Change in Reported Contact Scale
timeFrame: baseline, pre-intervention; change, one week following completion of the 8-week intervention
measure: Change in Desire for Intergroup Contact
timeFrame: baseline, pre-intervention; change, one week following completion of the 8-week intervention
measure: Change in Personal Experiences with Exclusion
timeFrame: baseline, pre-intervention; change, one week following completion of the 8-week intervention
measure: Change in Evaluations of Exclusion in Intergroup and Same Group Contexts
timeFrame: baseline, pre-intervention; change, one week following completion of the 8-week intervention
measure: Change in Likelihood of Inclusion in Intergroup and Same Group Contexts
timeFrame: baseline, pre-intervention; change, one week following completion of the 8-week intervention
Secondary outcomes:
Other outcomes:
Locations:
city: College Park
country: United States
facility: University of Maryland
state: Maryland
Study officials:
References:
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citation: Grutter J, Gasser L, Zuffiano A, Meyer B. Promoting Inclusion Via Cross-Group Friendship: The Mediating Role of Change in Trust and Sympathy. Child Dev. 2018 Jul;89(4):e414-e430. doi: 10.1111/cdev.12883. Epub 2017 Jun 19.
citation: Killen M, Burkholder AR, D'Esterre AP, Sims RN, Glidden J, Yee KM, Luken Raz KV, Elenbaas L, Rizzo MT, Woodward B, Samuelson A, Sweet TM, Stapleton LM. Testing the effectiveness of the Developing Inclusive Youth program: A multisite randomized control trial. Child Dev. 2022 May;93(3):732-750. doi: 10.1111/cdev.13785. Epub 2022 May 25.