Prejudices Among Indian Hindu and Muslim Adolescents

Abstract

The study highlights independent and interactive effects of ‘religion’ (Hindu and Muslim) and ‘gender of adolescents’ (boys and girls) on caste prejudices. A total of 280adolescents, belonging to Hindu and Muslim religions from Higher Secondary schools of Varanasi district of Uttar Pradesh (India) served as respondents. Indian Caste Prejudice Scale (ICPS) measuring: Political, social and economic gain (PSEG), Marriage and interpersonal relation (MIR), Personal Qualities (PQ), Education, employment and inhabitation (EEI), and the total sum of all the measures (TI) was employed. 2 x 2 ANOVA (2 religion x 2 gender of adolescents) and post hoc mean comparisons revealed significantly higher scores in Muslim than in Hindu, and in girls than in boys on all measures; and interaction variance on of MIR, PQ, and TI measures; revealing identical patterns of mean differences: significantly higher scores in Muslim girls than in their counter boys, both the groups indicated higher scores as compared to Hindu boys, and Hindu girls indicated significantly lowest scores. The results have been discussed in the light of the psychosocial and cultural factors involved.