Children in a multicultural daycare center prefer to play with peers who share their ethnicity, and will interact differently with children from another background, according to a study published in the European Journal of Developmental Psychology.
Researchers at Quebec’s Concordia University worked with 60 children from six different daycare centers located around Montreal – 30 of the children were French-Canadian and 30 were Asian-Canadian (mostly second-generation immigrants).
"Both groups were more interactive with children of the same ethnicity and, when matched with kids from another background, preferred solitary play," explained lead author Nadine Girouard.
The children in the study also acted differently towards kids from another culture than they did towards peers from a similar background.
"Children of both groups adapted their behaviors by speaking less in the case of French-Canadian children and by speaking more in the case of Asian-Canadian children," said co-author Dale Stack.
The researchers found that French-Canadian children used longer sentences and spoke more when playing with one another than when interacting with the Asian-Canadian children.