In-group bias and stereotyping among secondary school teachers in Kenya: an impediment to teaching peace in post-conflict settings?

An extensive body of research in Western settings has studied the effect of teachers' ethnic stereotypes and prejudice on pupils' performance and inter-group relations at school. As such, teachers' group-based expectations of pupils' performance would significantly lower the scholarly achievement of pupils from stereotyped groups, and would contribute to the persistence of existing stereotypes. School diversity itself would, moreover, have important implications for inter-group relations. None of these studies, to our knowledge, have been replicated in Sub-Saharan Africa. More generally, the state of the art in social-psychological research on inter-group attitudes in the area is sparse. Nevertheless, the region has been the scene of many inter-group conflicts in the past decades. In Kenya, for example, ethnic tensions were exacerbated prior to and in the aftermath of the presidential elections of 2007-2008, leading to a post-electoral crisis that cost the lives of an estimated 1000 people. This article attempts to expand the study of stereotyping and prejudice at school to a Sub-Saharan setting by studying teachers' ethno-religious stereotypes, while controlling for school diversity. Analyzing results from a large-scale survey (N=925) among secondary schools teachers in Nairobi, we find that popular societal ethno-religious stereotypes are present among teachers and that teachers are prone to a positive in-group bias. In line with the theory of peace education, we hence argue that teacher training in Kenya needs to sensitize teachers on prejudice reduction in order to break the cycle of politicization of ethnicity in the country.status: publishe