MGEMPOW · Paternalism and Psychological Interventions for Promoting Empowerment and Educational Integration among Minority Girls

Ethnic minority women such as Roma and Arab-Muslim women are one of the most disempowered groups in Europe. They face both gender and ethnic discrimination already in schools, resulting in weaker academic motivation and achievement, which then negatively impacts their professional opportunities, societal status, and welfare of their community. The achievement gap is often explained through structural barriers (e.g., segregation, poverty), however less academic and policy-making attention is paid on the individual and psychological barriers, such as on the impact of educators’ prejudice. The goal of the project is to validate an unexplored aspect of prejudice among educators, which is especially likely to be directed at minority girls and diminish their performance, namely paternalism, which is identified here as educators’ benevolent yet patronizing attitudes towards students. Firstly, the fellow aims to test how educators’ paternalism impact discrimination in schools, and how it produces minority girls’ psychological barriers to achievement. Secondly, to develop psychological interventions for educators and for minority girls to reduce paternalism and its impact, with the overall aim to improve students’ academic trajectory, meanwhile empower them to challenge their group’s situation in society. The project is focused on Roma minority in Hungary, and on Arab-Muslim minority in the Netherlands. The project is composed of four research programs, testing 1) educators’ paternalistic prejudice and discrimination, and 2) minority girls’ internalized paternalism, psychological academic barriers and performance, and their group identification. Paternalism-specific psychological intervention programs 3) for educators and 4) for students are designed and will be tested for short–long-term impact. The fellow employs quantitative (correlational, experimental) research methods and uses self-report and behavioral measures of discrimination, performance, and empowerment.