Children's Use of Multiple Categorisations in Practice in a Multicultural Setting

Little is known about whether and how children combine categories of race, ethnicity, language and religion in multicultural settings where more than one of these dimensions is salient. Ethnographic data from a multicultural London primary school found that children usually organised multiple categories congruently (e.g. ‘If you're Indian you are Sikh’), despite strong opposition from teachers. This congruent organisation may originate in an undifferentiated experience of categories in the family and/or represent the best ‘fit' with a local population in which categories were correlated. Children used congruent organisation to infer peers’ group membership, which may amplify intergroup contrasts.