"Them" or "us"? prejudices and stereotypes about muslims in pre-adolescent students

Abstract

The objectives of this work are to analyse the presence of prejudices and stereotypes about Muslims in a group of 6th grade primary school students and to reflect on the importance of detecting, thinking about and combating them, due to their influence on the formation of personal and collective identity from the perspective of the teaching of history. Using a mixed research methodology, the attitudes and opinions of a sample of 107 students, both Muslim and non-Muslim, from two schools in the Canary Islands are collected. The research instrument, developed for this investigation, is a questionnaire with 11 items with a Likert-type assessment scale, which have been analysed with Excel, and an open question which has been categorised and allowed for triangulation The results show a relative presence of prejudices and negative stereotypes among this student body, perhaps due to the historical and social context associated with the sample. These are linked to the generalisation and confusion of terms and meanings, which are present and transmitted by the media and historical education, intervening in the shaping of personal and collective identity.