Reducing paternalistic bias toward ethnic minority girls

Abstract

Ethnic minority girls and women often face biases not rooted in hostility but in intersecting ethnic and gender stereotypes, giving rise to paternalism – a seemingly benevolent attitude that undermines perceptions of competence and autonomy. Conventional prejudice-reduction interventions, which primarily target affective or implicit biases, overlook the distinct challenges posed by paternalism. This research introduces and tests an intervention in the educational context, designed to reduce teachers' paternalistic bias toward ethnic minority girls across two countries (United States and Hungary) with two follow-up assessments (N = 1350). The intervention follows a four-step, theory-driven process targeting the dynamics of paternalism: (1) affirming benevolent intentions to reduce defensiveness, (2) enhancing perceptions of minority girls' competence and autonomy, (3) raising awareness of paternalism's harm, and (4) motivating responsibility and fostering empowerment. Successful outcomes would provide a framework for reducing paternalism, whereas null results would highlight the difficulty of mitigating seemingly well-intentioned biases.