Vicarious intergroup contact and interethnic bullying

Interethnic bullying represents an emerging phenomenon that can have serious consequences on students. In this study we focused on vicarious intergroup contact, as an indirect contact form that can be used to fight it, providing a positive social environment where all individuals can be accepted. To operationalize vicarious contact, we created three fairy tales, structured so that the main character was a foreigner that was systematically discriminated and emarginated only because of his/her foreigner origin and diversity. The study was conducted with 117 elementary school children from first to third grade. They were read the fairy tales in three encounters, where they also took part to activities aimed to identify the rightness or not of the behavior read and the emotions felt as a consequence of the stories. Results from the administration of a questionnaire revealed that, compared to a control condition where children did not engage in any activity, the intervention elicited greater empathy toward the victim and social norms against bullying. In addition, empathy mediated the effects of the intervention on greater intentions to face interethnic bullying.