MONNI - Monikulttuurisempi koulu

The aim of the research project is to produce a suitable tool (model
for intervention) for influencing the ethnic attitudes of youth. The
research project is part of a wider MONNI (The More Multicultural
School)-project, a collaborative endeavour between the Palmenia
Centre for Continuing Education (the units in Kotka, Lahti, Kouvola
and Helsinki) and Social Psychology at the Department of Social
Research, University of Helsinki.

In this project, Social Psychology at the Dept. of Social Research is
responsible for the development of the intervention model, the aim of
which is to contribute to positive change of the ethnic attitudes of
pupils in upper secondary school. The roots of the intervention to be
developed are in an intervention study carried out at the Department
of Social Psychology and lead by Prof. Karmela Liebkind in the
1990´s. In this study, the ethnic attitudes of pupils upper secondary
school were successfully improved (cf. Liebkind & McAlister, 1999).
This intervention will be further developed within the MONNI project
into a working instrument applicable in schools.

The intervention is based on the theory of extended contact,
according to which knowledge about friendship between an ingroup and
an outgroup member changes attitudes towards outgroup members in a
positive direction. In the intervention the pupils are presented with
written stories about friendship between members of different ethnic
groups and the pupils are encouraged to share with each other their
own positive experiences of positive intergroup interaction.

The intervention part of the project is carried out in two upper
secondary schools in Lahti in the spring 2010 and in several upper
secondary schools in Helsinki in the autumn 2010 and spring 2011. The
research design is that of a field experiment and the effectiveness
of the intervention will be evaluated with quantitative methods. The
target groups of the intervention are both the majority and the
minority youth.