Children and Social Exclusion - Morality, Prejudice and Group Identity

Melanie Killen is Professor of Human Development, Professor of Psychology (Affiliate), and the Associate Director for the Center for Children, Relationships, and Culture at the University of Maryland. She is a Fellow of both the American Psychological Association and the Association for Psychological Science. She is also a recent recipient of the Distinguished Scholar-Teacher Award by the Provost from the University of Maryland. Her book with Dan Hart, Morality in Everyday Life: Developmental Perspectives (1995), received the outstanding book award from AERA, and her book with Sheri Levy, Intergroup Attitudes and Relations from Childhood to Adulthood, received an Honorable Mention for the Otto Klineberg Memorial Prize from SPSSI. She has over 100 publications. Her research examines the development of morality, intergroup attitudes, exclusion and inclusion, peer relationships, prejudice, culture, and how diversity in social experience is related to social cognitive development. Adam Rutland is Professor of Developmental Psychology at the Child Development Unit and Centre for the Study of Group Processes in the School of Psychology at the University of Kent. Previously he has been a British Academy Post-doctoral Fellow at the University of Surrey and been a member of Faculty at the University of Aberdeen. His research examines the development of children's prejudice and social identities. He has conducted recent research into when and how children learn to self-present their explicit attitudes; how intergroup contact can reduce children's prejudice; children's exclusion of peers within groups and acculturation amongst ethnic minority children. Professor Rutland's research has primarily been funded by the Economic and Social Research Council and the British Academy in the UK. He has published over 40 publications in international journals and has edited volumes in the fields of developmental and social psychology.