Racism

• Whether it's openly expressed or not, prejudice toward racial minority groups is a problem in many countries around the world. The journal Theory Into Practice reports that racial prejudice develops early in life; according to the journal Political Psychology, prejudice remains largely stable through adulthood. Children learn to discriminate through exposure to other people's biased attitudes and by seeing the real-world results of racial discrimination. According to a study cited by the Australasian Human Development Association, by the time they reach adolescence, young adults are heavily influenced by their friends' racial attitudes. However, the more exposure adolescents have to other racial groups, the less prejudice they display. Prejudicial attitudes may therefore increase among adolescents attending single-race schools or living in non-multicultural areas.
  
  

Poverty

• Many industrialized countries display an overt bigotry against the poor. Children in Western countries may learn prejudice through exposure to a media packed with negative images of poor people and the attitude among the middle classes that poverty is a result of a character deficit. According to the University of Connecticut's Department of Psychology, children and adolescents may become prejudiced against poor people as a way of psychologically distancing themselves from the negatives associated with poverty.
  
  

Gender

• An article on BNET reports children can distinguish between pictures of male and female faces by five months of age. A presentation prepared for San Mateo County Community College District says that children develop social groups based on gender at about three years of age and can use gender labels for themselves and others accurately. Pre-school children show a strong bias in favor of same-sex playmates, suggesting already formulated ideas of how their own sex is superior. According to a study in the journal Applied Developmental Psychology, by grades 7, 8 and 9, males were more sex-role stereotyped and prejudiced than females.
  
  

Sexual Preference

• According to the Archives of Sexual Behavior, although the prevalence of negative homosexual stereotypes has generally been reduced in Western countries, the prevalence of homophobic beliefs still warrants concern. The development of prejudice against gays and lesbians is a learned response that is influenced by the environment, culture and media to which a child is exposed. According to the Journal of Homosexuality, adolescents in grades 7, 9 and 11 displayed many of the same trends in prejudice as found in the adult population. For instance, males were more prejudiced than females and prejudice against same-sex homosexuals was greater than opposite-sex prejudice. The spike in adolescent prejudice is thought to be a declarative measure made as part of their preparing to enter relationships. The Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology reports that lesbian and gay prejudice declines with increasing age.