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Despite the significance of the undergraduate dissertation both in student learning, and in staff workload, there is little discussion of best practice in research supervision. The majority of undergraduate students embark on an independent research project overseen by one member of staff, but this traditional model may cause undue stress and isolation for both students and staff. In this practice exchange paper, I provoke debate about traditional versus group models of research supervision through discussion of the effectiveness of collective academic supervision of a group of undergraduate students undertaking their mandatory research dissertation. This practice aimed to 1) improve the student experience and 2) increase efficiency of academic supervision. Under my supervision, 14 students conjointly participated in a high quality research programme while individually exploring tangible and level-appropriate research questions. Through self-reflective observation, I found this model of research supervision stimulated students through structured independent learning in a collaborative research community, and increased staff efficiency by decreasing workloads. The benefits and limitations of this practice are discussed.

Amid protracted conflict, children are raised in divided contexts that shape the development of their intergroup attitudes and behaviors. Social identity development theory (SIDT) suggests that in-group preference may contribute to more negative out-group attitudes and behaviors in middle childhood. In such contexts, in-group favoritism may shape resource distribution, a key indicator of prosocial behavior. This study examined the predictors of resource distribution among 387 children (age: M = 9.59, SD = 2.34) of majority (Jewish) and minority (Arab-Muslim) groups in Israel. Rooted in SIDT, a multiple-group chain mediation found that the effect of age on out-group prosocial giving was serially mediated by the child's in-group symbol preference and negative out-group attitudes. The mediation held across both majority and minority groups, highlighting the underlying developmental process of prosocial giving across group lines in a divided society.

Adults implicitly judge people from certain social backgrounds as more "American" than others. This study tests the development of children's reasoning about nationality and social categories. Children across cultures (White and Korean American children in the United States, Korean children in South Korea) judged the nationality of individuals varying in race and language. Across cultures, 5- to 6-year-old children (N = 100) categorized English speakers as "American" and Korean speakers as "Korean" regardless of race, suggesting that young children prioritize language over race when thinking about nationality. Nine- and 10-year-olds (N = 181) attended to language and race and their nationality judgments varied across cultures. These results suggest that associations between nationality and social category membership emerge early in life and are shaped by cultural context.

Past research finds that monolingual and bilingual children prefer native speakers to individuals who speak in unfamiliar foreign languages or accents. Do children in bilingual contexts socially distinguish among familiar languages and accents and, if so, how do their social preferences based on language and accent compare? The current experiments tested whether 5- to 7-year-olds in two bilingual contexts in the United States demonstrate social preferences among the languages and accents that are present in their social environments. We compared children's preferences based on language (i.e., English vs. their other native language) and their preferences based on accent (i.e., English with a native accent vs. English with a non-native [yet familiar] accent). In Experiment 1, children attending a French immersion school demonstrated no preference between English and French speakers but preferred American-accented English to French-accented English. In Experiment 2, bilingual Korean American children demonstrated no preference between English and Korean speakers but preferred American-accented English to Korean-accented English. Across studies, bilingual children's preferences based on accent (i.e., American-accented English over French- or Korean-accented English) were not related to their own language dominance. These results suggest that children from diverse linguistic backgrounds demonstrate social preferences for native-accented speakers. Implications for understanding the potential relation between social reasoning and language acquisition are discussed.

This study explored how children's perceptions of social group differences relate to attitudes and behaviour towards real‐world outgroups. We examined Arab‐Christian children living in Israel (N = 231, 52% female, average age 9.8 years) and randomly presented them with either Arab‐Muslim or Jewish outgroup targets. The children performed tasks measuring attitudes and prosocial behaviour towards the outgroup. Additionally, they were asked to describe the differences between their ingroup and the outgroup target. We found that children favoured the Arab‐Muslim outgroup over the Jewish outgroup, and perceived it as having fewer dimensions of difference from their ingroup. Fewer perceived dimensions of difference correlated with more positive attitudes. By the age of 12, however, perceiving more dimensions of difference was linked to increased compensatory prosocial behaviour towards the Jewish outgroup. The findings emphasize the dynamic interplay between cognitive development and intergroup experiences in understanding children's prosocial behaviour towards different outgroups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite early emerging and impressive linguistic abilities, young children demonstrate ostensibly puzzling beliefs about the nature of language. In some circumstances monolingual children even express the belief that an individual's language is more stable than her race. The present research investigated bilingual children's thinking about the relative stability of language and race (Kinzler & Dautel, 2012). Five-to six-year-old bilingual children were asked to judge whether a target child who varied in race (White or Black) and language (English or French) would grow up to be an adult who maintained the target child's race or her language. Similar to many monolingual children, a heterogeneous group of bilingual children on average chose the language-match. Yet French-English bilingual children were relatively more likely to choose the race-match, especially when tested in their non-dominant language. Specific experience with relevant languages, and communicating in a non-dominant language, may contribute to children's developing metalinguistic success and their thinking about social categorization.

The Developing Belief Network is a consortium of researchers studying human development in diverse social-cultural settings, with a focus on the interplay between general cognitive development and culturally specific processes of socialization and cultural transmission in early and middle childhood. The current manuscript describes the study protocol for the network's first wave of data collection, which aims to explore the development and diversity of religious cognition and behavior. This work is guided by three key research questions: (1) How do children represent and reason about religious and supernatural agents? (2) How do children represent and reason about religion as an aspect of social identity? (3) How are religious and supernatural beliefs transmitted within and between generations? The protocol is designed to address these questions via a set of nine tasks for children between the ages of 4 and 10 years, a comprehensive survey completed by their parents/caregivers, and a task designed to elicit conversations between children and caregivers. This study is being conducted in 39 distinct cultural-religious groups (to date), spanning 17 countries and 13 languages. In this manuscript, we provide detailed descriptions of all elements of this study protocol, give a brief overview of the ways in which this protocol has been adapted for use in diverse religious communities, and present the final, English-language study materials for 6 of the 39 cultural-religious groups who are currently being recruited for this study: Protestant Americans, Catholic Americans, American members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Jewish Americans, Muslim Americans, and religiously unaffiliated Americans. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An overarching, supraordinate identity (e.g., European identity) can enhance intergroup relations if individuals recategorize ingroup and outgroup members into one, unified group. Yet, in conflict‐affected societies, ethno‐national identities may promote negative intergroup attitudes and behaviours. The effects of European and ethno‐national identities in combination have yet to be explored in childhood. If they can be integrated, the inclusivity of a supraordinate European identity may be felt despite the divisiveness of ethno‐national identities in post‐accord societies. This research assesses supraordinate identity integration in relation to quality intergroup contact and cross‐group friendships among the post‐accord generation in Croatia, Kosovo and Republic of North Macedonia (RNM). These sites have relatively recent conflicts, but varying relationships to the EU. Data were collected from 382 children aged 7–11, split evenly by minority and majority status (Croatia n = 90; Kosovo n = 107; RNM n = 185). Children across all three sites had integrated ethno‐national/European identities. Levels of identity integration varied by site, but not group status. Identity integration was positively and significantly associated with quality of outgroup contact and number of cross‐group friends, and this relationship varied by site. Integrated supraordinate identities have promising implications for intergroup relations and the future of peacebuilding in Europe. Please refer to the Supplementary Material section to find this article's Community and Social Impact Statement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Across four studies, we directly compared children's essentialist reasoning about the stability of race and language throughout an individual's lifespan. Monolingual English-speaking children were presented with a series of images of children who were either White or Black; each face was paired with a voice clip in either English or French. Participants were asked which of two adults each target child would grow up to be--one who was a "match" to the target child in race but not language, and the other a "match" in language but not race. Nine- to 10-year-old European American children chose the race-match, rather than the language-match. In contrast, 5-6-year-old European American children in both urban, racially diverse, and rural, racially homogeneous environments chose the language-match, even though this necessarily meant that the target child would transform racial categories. Although surprising in light of adult reasoning, these young children demonstrated an intuition about the relative stability of an individual's language compared to her racial group membership. Yet, 5-6-year-old African American children, similar to the older European American children, chose the race-match, suggesting that membership in a racial minority group may highlight children's reasoning about race as a stable category. Theoretical implications for our understanding of children's categorization of human kinds are discussed.

Empathy for salient outgroups can promote positive intergroup attitudes and prosocial behaviours. Less is known about which factors may promote empathy, particularly among children, in contexts of intergroup conflict. Empathy may depend on underlying cognitions, such as social essentialist beliefs, that is, believing that certain social categories have an underlying essence that causes members to share observable and non‐observable properties. This study explored the influence of essentialist beliefs about ethno‐religious categories on outgroup‐directed empathy, attitudes and prosocial behaviours of children living in Northern Ireland (N = 88; M = 7.09, SD = 1.47 years old). Bootstrapped chain mediation found that lower essentialist beliefs predicted greater outgroup‐directed empathy, which was positively related to outgroup attitudes, which in turn, predicted more outgroup prosocial behaviours. The findings highlight the importance of essentialist beliefs as an underlying factor promoting empathy, with links to prosocial behaviours in settings of intergroup conflict. The intervention implications are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper explored how to promote constructive intergroup relations among children and young people in a context of protracted conflict. Across two studies, the Empathy–Attitudes–Action model was examined in middle childhood and adolescence. More specifically, we tested the relations among dispositional empathy, out‐group attitudes, and prosocial behaviors for youth born after the peace agreement in Northern Ireland. In one correlational (Study 1: N = 132; 6–11 years old: M = 8.42 years, SD = 1.23) and one longitudinal design (Study 2: N = 466; 14–15 years old), bootstrapped mediation analyses revealed that empathy was associated with more positive attitudes toward the conflict‐related out‐group, which in turn, was related to higher out‐group prosocial behaviors, both self‐report and concrete actions. Given that out‐group prosocial acts in a setting of intergroup conflict may serve as the antecedents for peacebuilding among children and adolescents, this study has intervention implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]