A test of the maintenance of the effects of imagined contact framed with supportive social norms as a teacher-led field intervention

As the arrival of refugees and asylum seekers continues to increase, schools continue to become a  vital center for children to develop positive intergroup attitudes. Teacher-led activities can  become useful tools in sustainable prejudice reduction. A field intervention incorporated  normative in-group influence with imagined intergroup contact to reduce children’s anti-refugee  bias. Ten primary school classes (N = 269, Mage = 10.69 years) were randomly assigned to one of  four conditions: (a) class norm-framed imagined contact (n = 88), (b) family norm-framed  imagined contact (n = 49), (c) religious in-group norm-framed imagined contact (n = 51), or  (d) standard (n = 80) imagined contact. Teachers facilitated a series of four imagined contact  activities over 4 weeks, with anti-refugee bias measured at baseline and 2 weeks after the final  activity. Imagined contact framed in the class context was associated with significantly lower  post-intervention contact intentions bias as compared to standard imagined contact. There were  no significant effects of family or religion norm framed imagined contact conditions. Findings are  discussed in relation to the feasibility of teacher-led school-based interventions and the impor?tance of a supportive normative context in the classroom for anti-refugee bias.