The current study examined how Saudi children evaluate and justify peer exclusion based on religion depending on whether the perpetrator of the exclusion was the father or a peer. Children’s judgements and reasoning varied as a function of both target’s group and the source of exclusion. Supporting social identity theory, children believed that it was more acceptable to exclude an outgroup member than an ingroup member (Tajfel, 2010). Children
tended to use social conventional reasoning more when discussing the exclusion of outgroup than ingroup members. In contrast to past research (Møller & Tenenbaum, 2011), the
participants were more likely to support exclusion when ordered by a father than a peer and used more social conventional reasoning in these cases. In terms of age, no age differences were found in the children’s judgement of exclusion, but 10-year-old children used more social conventional than moral reasoning.
Group Membership. In line with expectations drawn from social identity theory, the attitudes of the children reveal ingroup bias as they accepted the exclusion of an outgroup member more than an ingroup member (Tajfel, 2010). Children may distinguish ingroup members from outgroups in order to protect their group identity from threats and maintain their self-esteem (Breakwell, 2015); this in turn leads to discrimination against outgroup members. The findings contrasted with past studies (Møller & Tenenbaum, 2011), in which children judged it worse to exclude outgroup members than ingroup members.
When discussing the exclusion of outgroup members, children tended to invoke social conventional reasoning. The majority of this reasoning focused on the social and religious influence of an outgroup member. Previous research on intergroup exclusion based on gender and ethnicity has shown that children are concerned about group functioning when justifying the exclusion of an outgroup (Killen et al., 2002). Judging exclusion based on religion, children frequently used social conventional reasoning that explicitly mentioned religious influences to justify the exclusion of the outgroup. For example, a 10-year-old boy expressed the following judgement on exclusion of non-Muslims: ‘When a Muslim child plays with non-Muslims, they will encourage her/him to leave Islam and the God will punish him/her’. Another 12-year-old girl mentioned that ‘a non-Muslim could affect Muslims girls’ beliefs regarding wearing a hejab (veil) and abaya (cloak)’. Justifications about dress reflect the social and religious conventions that are rooted in societies (Turiel, 2002). It seems that
children’s reasoning reflected the fear of negative effects of non-Muslims on Muslim children’s religion and behaviours (Scourfield, Gilliat-Ray, Khan, & Otri, 2010).
Another reason children may have believed it was more acceptable to exclude non- Muslims compared to Muslims is because of little contact with the outgroup. Limited interaction with outgroup members may affect children’s judgments of exclusion. For example, Killen (2007) found that children in non-diverse schools believed it was more acceptable to exclude outgroup members than children in diverse schools.
When children argued for including outgroup members, occasionally the children did so for the purpose of spreading Islam, which was a type of social conventional reasoning. Children used this type of reasoning about 10% of the time to justify their answers.
Supporting this view, a 10-year-old girl asserted: ‘They must allow a non-Muslim girl to play with them, teach her Islam, and convince her to convert to Islam. This is the best way to spread Islam around the world’. This category of social conventional reasoning has not been found in previous research.
The Authority of Father. Living in a collectivist society may also have influenced how children evaluated the perpetrator of peer exclusion (Turiel, 1998). Contrary to Møller and Tenenbaum (2011), but in line with expectations drawn from the literature on fathers’ authority in patriarchal and patrilineal societies, children perceived exclusion as more acceptable when an authority figure was the perpetrator than when it was a peer (Al-Simadi & Atoum, 2000; Turiel & Wainryb, 2000). Given the high degree of obedience and respect for authority in collectivist societies (Lin & Vu, 1990; Chao & Tseng, 2002; Tamis-LeMonda et al., 2007), it is not surprising that children would respect their fathers’ instructions and admonishments. Moreover, in Islamic culture, Muslims consider obedience to parental authority as a duty. Indeed, children noted that they were afraid of God’s punishment if they disobeyed their fathers and used social conventional reasoning in this context. As an eight-
year-old boy remarked: ‘The child should obey his father; otherwise, Allah will punish him and send him to hell” and “everyone must obey his parents to gain good deeds’. Thus, children’s patterns of judging the perpetrator of exclusion differed from previous research.
Age Differences. The findings regarding age confirm previous research (Møller & Tenenbaum, 2011; Killen et al, 2002) that has shown that age is not strongly associated with children’s judgments. Although Killen et al (2002) found that 15-year-olds condone peer exclusion based on gender and ethnicity more than nine- or 12-year-olds, there was no significant difference between nine- and 12-year-olds. However, the 10-year-old children tended to use social conventional reasons to justify their judgements about exclusion. Consistent with previous work, with age the children became more able to invoke different and more complicated reasons related to social conventional norms (Horn, 2003; Killen & Rutland, 2013).
The increase in social knowledge with age makes children more understanding of the meaning of being a member of a certain social system, which can affect their social
interactions and judgments (Nucci, 2001). Thus, awareness of religious identity and the feeling of affiliation to a specific religious group may encourage children aged 10 years to rely on social conventional reasoning, such as social and religion influence or stereotyping in their judgement of exclusion. Indeed, around age 10 years, children use stereotyping and prejudice to justify why someone may not like to be a member of their ethnic group, so they are aware of others’ stereotyping and make judgments using this stereotype (McKown & Weinstein, 2003; Quintana & Vera, 1999). Often, adolescents become more nuanced in their reasoning (Killen & Rutland, 2011), which may account for why this difference did not persist in the older age group. In the current study, all of the participants were 12 years old or younger. Thus, future research is needed to examine the influence of age on religion-based peer exclusion with older age groups.
2.9.1. Limitations and Future Directions
One limitation was the vignettes we used. The peer versus father vignettes differed because the father excludes his own child. Also, following Malti et al. (2012), a group of peers excludes rather than a single perpetrator. Second, because some snowball sampling was used, participants could be from similar backgrounds. Third, the researcher was not blind to the study design when coding the interviews. Future research is needed to examine the relationship between socialization and children’s judgments, such as how mothers socialize children to understand peer exclusion.
2.9.2. Conclusions and Implications
In sum, this study extends social domain theory by demonstrating that children’s judgements and reasoning are embedded within the socio-cultural values of their
communities. In more collectivistic cultures, such as Saudi Arabia, adults’ authority may be stronger than in more individualistic cultures, such as the Danish one.
There are also practical implications of this research. Given the negative effects on young people of ethno-political violence especially in Middle Eastern countries (Niwa, Dubow, Shikaki, Boxer, Huesmann, & Landau, 2016), the results of the current study could support the current efforts of the Saudi government to promote tolerance and reduce
prejudice (Alrassi, 2014). Indeed, in 2003, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia began a series of semi-public National Dialogues to discuss socio-political issues, such as tolerance between different sects and religions (Thompson, 2011). Thus, such research focusing on religious exclusion could support the vision of Saudi government to reduce prejudice and enhance tolerance. Given the obedience children demonstrate toward fathers in moral judgement and reasoning, it seems that any intervention will need to involve fathers. One solution might be to find ways of increasing fathers’ awareness of the negative impact that exclusion has on society in Saudi Arabia, where non-Muslims coexist with Muslims.