Research on children’s ethnic, racial and anti-immigrant attitudes has focused on various factors and processes such as social-cognitive development, moral reasoning, in-group norms, group identification, intergroup contact, feelings of threat, and school composition and educational practices (see Levy and Killen
2008; Rutland and Killen
2015). What has received much less attention is the role of so-called lay theories for children’s negative out-group attitudes. There is some work on the ways in which group essentialism beliefs (Diesendruck and Menahem
2015), beliefs about the malleability or fixedness of human attributes (Levy and Karafantis
2008), protestant work ethic beliefs (Levy et al.
2008), and shared conflict beliefs (Bar-Tal and Teichman
2005) justify children’s negative attitudes. In addition to these lay theories, and similar to what is expressed in the quote above, children might reason that a place belongs to their in-group because they were there first and therefore that it is acceptable to exclude newcomers. In intergroup research, and following anthropological literature, this notion of primo-occupancy with the related ownership feelings has been labeled “autochthony beliefs” and these beliefs have been found to be important for adults’ ethnic out-group attitudes (e.g., Martinovic and Verkuyten
2013; Smeekes et al.
2015).
With three empirical studies conducted in the Netherlands the current research examines the importance of autochthony beliefs for majority group children’s (grades 4–6) attitudes towards immigrants. The current aim is to introduce the novel construct of autochthony to the intergroup development literature (Rutland et al.
2010) and to empirically examine its relevance for out-group attitudes of ethnic majority group children. The importance of this lay theory was investigated while considering ethnic identification, and by taking perceived multicultural education (Studies 2 and 3), classroom composition (Studies 2 and 3), and feeling at home in the country (Study 3) into account. The general expectation that was tested is that, whereas ethnic identification is mainly relevant for in-group attitudes, autochthony beliefs with their sense of native collective ownership (“it is ours”) are especially important for attitudes towards immigrant groups. More specifically, autochthony beliefs are considered to provide a justification for negative immigrant attitudes of majority group children, in particular when they at the same time do not feel at home anymore in their own country (see quote above). Thus, it was hypothesized that autochthony beliefs can serve to justify anti-immigrant attitudes and prevailing social inequalities (Jost et al.
2004). In short, this research breaks new ground in examining the importance of autochthony beliefs for children’s evaluation of immigrant groups and in investigating when these beliefs are particularly important by considering the moderating role of a sense of feeling at home in one’s country. In doing so we not only introduce the novel concept of autochthony to the literature but also make a contribution to the rather limited understanding of children’s attitudes toward the increasingly important group of immigrants (e.g., Brown
2011; Brown and Lee
2015).
Although young children (5 years) show tendencies to justify group advantages (Baron and Banaji
2009), the understanding and endorsement of lay theories that justify advantages appears later (Henry and Saul
2006; Levy and Karafantis
2008). It is only at around 8 years of age that children are able to use and weight different forms of information to assess and evaluate claims and rights (Smetana
2006). Furthermore, compared to objects, ownership of a territory might be a rather abstract issue for young children. Research has shown that children’s knowledge and beliefs about countries as geographical territories develops from around seven years onwards (see Barrett
2007). In addition, longitudinal research in Western Europe has shown that early adolescence is a sensitive developmental period for the emergence of negative attitudes toward immigrants (Gniewosz and Noack
2015). Therefore, the current research focuses on late childhood (grades 4–6) and there were no reasons to expect meaningful age differences. Lay theories once learned instigate a distinct and stable pattern of evaluation and judgment with respect to the target group. For example, research on protestant ethic beliefs and on entity and incremental beliefs indicates that these beliefs tend to function the same in social judgments regardless of age (Levy and Karafantis
2008).
Ownership and Autochthony Beliefs
Perceived ownership is a pervasive notion that has profound implications for how individuals, think, feel and behave (Ye and Gawronski
2016). Ownership helps to organize the social and physical environment, regulates social interactions, and involves normative and moral privileges and responsibilities (Verkuyten and Martinovic
2017). Perceived ownership implies a bundle of rights such as the right to use what is owned and to decide whether to keep the target of ownership or not. Importantly, ownership also implies a ‘gatekeeper right’: the right to exclude others and to decide whether others are permitted or prohibited to use the object or have access to it (Merrill
1998). Ownership tells us not only what one may properly do to or with an object but especially what others may not do.
Considering these implications it is understandable that disputes over ownership of objects and places are among the most frequent and most intense intergroup conflicts (Toft
2014), also among children. Although ownership is not an obvious property of objects but rather abstract and imperceptible, young children already recognize it. Preschoolers have a basic understanding of ownership of physical objects and appreciate that owners are entitled to greater control over their property than non-owners (Kim and Kalish
2009; Rossano et al.
2011). By the age of 6 or 7 children’s notions of ownership are also applied to ideas and intellectual property (Shaw et al.
2012), and to places (O’Neal et al.
1977). There are many situations in which groups of children make claims on a particular physical place, such as when children convert a site in their play area, club or hideaway (Factor
2004). Territorial behavior whereby an intruder is excluded or punished for invading ‘our’ play area has been found in observational and experimental research among children (O’Neal et al.
1977; Zebian and Rochat
2012).
Children can infer ownership from seeing someone in possession of an object (Blake and Harris
2009), from verbal statements about who owns an object (Blake et al.
2012), from observing who decides on whether others can use it (Neary et al.
2009), and by using principles of past investment (creating or modifying an object), and ownership transfer (buying or giving) (Kanngiesser et al.
2014). In addition, children have been found to judge that an object belongs to the first person possessing it (Blake and Harris
2009; Friedman and Neary
2008). Older children and adults argue that the first person seen to possess a previously non-owned object is its owner (Friedman
2008; Friedman and Neary
2008), and the same has been found for the ownership of ideas (Shaw and Olson
2002). Similarly, being first at a particular place is information that children use to infer ownership. First arrival indicates one’s presence at a place before anyone else and this in itself is an important basis for establishing ownership. Experimental research has demonstrated that children as old as eight years infer personal (“mine”) and, importantly, also collective (“ours”) territorial ownership from first arrival (Verkuyten et al.
2015; Verkuyten et al.
2015). In this research, first arrival on an island was found to be a consideration that undermines the notion of equal sharing which is a key moral principle for children (e.g., Fehr et al.
2008; Rochat et al.
2009) that is typically applied when there are no other considerations involved, such as social conventions, group norms, interests and personal benefits.
These findings correspond with anthropological work on autochthony (Geschiere
2009) and “Sons of Soil” conflicts (Côté and Mitchell
2017) which demonstrates that primo-occupants are considered as rightfully possessing an area. This is evident in the moral and legal claims on resources and territory made by indigenous groups and so-called “first nations” or “first peoples”. The notion of autochthony suggest that first arrival determines place ownership with the related right to usage and to exclude others. The term autochthony can be traced back to ancient Greece and it means literally being “born from the soil” (Geschiere
2009). It is the belief that a country or a region belongs to its original inhabitants. This belief triggers self-evident notions of ownership and entitlements and thereby has an “implicit call for excluding strangers (‘allochthons’), whoever they may be” (Ceuppens and Geschiere
2005, p. 386). In European non-settler countries, this notion has been used to reject immigrants and to justify prejudice towards immigrant groups (Ceuppens
2011; Geschiere
2009). An immigrant represents someone trying to become a member of one’s national in-group and this typically elicits considerations of collective ownership and territorial belonging (Verkuyten and Martinovic
2017).
Autochthony can function as a justifying belief (Jost et al.
2004) because it makes the more advantaged position of the native majority group understandable and just. Children as young as 5 appear to be sensitive to these sorts of justifying beliefs (Baron and Banaji
2009) and 10-year olds have been found to endorse them (Henry and Saul
2006; Levy and Karafantis
2008). Furthermore, lay theories can justify children’s thoughts, feelings and behaviors toward minority out-groups (Levy et al.
2008). It was expected that majority group children who more strongly endorse autochthony beliefs will have a more negative attitude toward immigrant groups (Studies 1 to 3) and refugees (Study 2).
Furthermore, in Study 3 the expectation was tested that the association between autochthony beliefs and out-group attitudes is especially strong among children who feel less at home in the Netherlands (Barrett
2007; Verkuyten et al.
2014). Social identity development theory (Nesdale
2008) proposes that negative out-group attitudes tend to emerge when majority members feel that their position or well-being is undermined in some way by members of ethnic out-groups (e.g., Nesdale et al.
2005; Nesdale et al.
2005). Children’s attitudes and reasoning are influenced by social context and exposure (Killen et al.
2008) and research has shown that older children are aware of the societal debate on immigration and existing anti-immigration sentiments (Brown
2011). The Dutch immigration debate is typically framed in terms of what immigration means for the country, and the widespread sentiment is that the ethnic majority Dutch (“
Nederlander” in Dutch language) feel estranged and no longer at home in their own country (“
Nederland”): “The native Dutch, it is argued, have become like foreigners in their own country, feeling what foreigners should allegedly feel: not at home” (Duyvendak
2011 p. 98). Research shows that the ethnic Dutch do indeed increasingly (2006 to 2015) feel not at home in the Netherlands, and not feeling at home is higher among adolescents than adults (Huijnk and Andriessen
2016). This feeling can be expected to make autochthony beliefs more important for attitudes toward immigrant groups. Proprietary claims to a country that are accompanied by a sense of estrangement has been found to be associated with more negative ethnic out-group attitudes (Martinovic and Verkuyten
2013). Theoretically, and as indicated in the quote heading this paper, it is the combination of autochthony beliefs with the sense that one’s ability to feel at home in one’s own country is undermined, that in particular should be associated with more negative attitudes toward immigrant groups (Bobo
1999). Therefore, Study 3 tested the expectation that autochthony is stronger related to anti-immigrant attitudes among ethnic majority Dutch children who have a lower sense of feeling at home in the Netherlands.
Ethnic Identification
Autochthony and the related sense of ownership does not have to imply a sense of ethnic group belonging. Individuals can believe that their group owns a particular place because of first-arrival without having a sense of commitment and belonging to in-group members (Verkuyten and Martinovic
2017). Research among children has demonstrated that stronger in-group identification goes together with more positive attitudes toward the in-group, including the national in-group (Bennett et al.
1998; Pfeifer et al.
2007). A positive evaluation of the group to which one belongs provides a positive sense of self (Tajfel and Turner
1979). This means that it can be expect that in the three studies majority group children with higher ethnic identification will be more positive about their ethnic majority group.
Higher in-group identification does not have to imply, however, that out-groups are evaluated more negatively (Cameron et al.
2001). Social identity development theory (Nesdale
2008) proposes that stronger feelings of in-group belonging lead to a stronger in-group orientation and commitment, but not necessarily to a rejection of out-groups. Higher compared to lower ethnic identifiers are predominantly focused upon and concerned about their ethnic in-group. Yet when concerns about the out-group come into play it is more likely that in-group identification is associated with negative out-group attitudes. According to social identity theory (Tajfel and Turner
1979), higher compared to lower identifiers are more sensitive to anything that could harm or undermine their feeling of in-group belonging. This means that it can be expected that the combination of autochthony beliefs with a sense of not feeling at home is particularly important for higher identifiers. Those who feel that the Netherlands is no longer their home and also consider being Dutch important to their sense of self are likely to base their negative attitudes toward immigrants on autochthony beliefs. This expected three-way interaction between autochthony, home feeling and ethnic identification was tested in Study 3.
Current Study
The general expectation tested is that stronger autochthony belief is associated with more negative immigrant attitudes and that this association is particularly strong for children who have a relatively low sense of feeling at home in the country but at the same time care about being Dutch. In two ways this research tried to provide clear empirical evidence for this expectation.
First, in assessing the robustness of the associations found for autochthony it was examined whether the statistical effects of autochthony was similar for different age groups, boys and girls, level of ethnic identity, perceived multicultural education, and classroom ethnic composition. The presence of similar effects demonstrates that the role of autochthony for attitudes toward immigrants does not depend on these individual and classroom differences and thereby would underscore the general and robust importance of the construct of autochthony beliefs for children’s immigrant attitudes.
Second, given the increased importance of replication in research (e.g., Pashler and Wagenmakers
2012), it is important to ensure that the results could be replicated with different samples of ethnic majority group children and somewhat different measures and operationalizations of group attitudes. The expectations were tested in three separate analyses by using data from three different studies
1 on children’s attitudes towards school and their academic engagement. In these studies questions on autochthony beliefs and attitudes toward the two most prominent and numerically largest immigrant-origin groups in the Netherlands (of Turkish and Moroccan origin, both around 400,000 people) were included. These two groups have a history of labor migration starting in the late 1960s, followed by a process of family reunification in the mid-1970s which means that nowadays majority group children are mostly exposed to second and third generation immigrants.