Preventing Prejudice

A Guide for Counselors, Educators, and Parents

An impressive, deliberate and problem-oriented Second Edition. Prejudice has no boundaries and spares no one. Preventing Prejudice offers hope and resources to all of us, counselors, educators, and parents. We are all agents of change.

Ponterotto and Pedersen’s original book was a primer embraced by professionals and parents alike. It was a call to action, pressing the reader to DO SOMETHING to effect change. The Second Edition, with Utsey as a powerful third voice, is truly a new book. The field has grown, the literature has exploded, yet racial and cultural prejudice still flourish. This new book expands our awareness of the problem. The section on the history and consequences of prejudice is thought-provoking. The introduction of the Multicultural Personality builds on literature from several fields. Finally, the authors prompt the reader to apply this new-found knowledge with age-specific exercises. With this exciting edition in hand there is no excuse to not DO SOMETHING to reduce or prevent prejudice.

Preventing Prejudice: A Guide for Counselors, Educators, and Parents, Second Edition is a unique and refreshing book that tackles two of the most interrelated and problematic issues in our society: prejudice and racism. The first edition was unanimously acclaimed as a major contribution to the field and this second edition is destined to be a classic. It represents one of the most clear, concise and honest looks at the origins, manifestations, dynamics and psychological costs of prejudice and racism written thus far. One of its major strengths is the authors’ ability to relate these topics to everyday life, to speak directly to counselors, educators, and parents in meaningful ways, to ground their concepts in the research and theories of the day, and to give an uplifting message about what can be done to combat these two evils. Toward this end they provide specific suggestions and exercises that can be used by readers to combat their own biases and to help others as well. Educators wishing to help their students begin the process of confronting their own biases, parents who desire to help their children become multicultural citizens of the world, and counselors who wish to become culturally competent will find much in this book. This is truly a superb book that makes a major contribution to the field and should be read by everyone.

The distance between aspiring towards human affirmation on one hand, and legitimate change in the social climate of America on the other, is paved with the road called rhetoric. Like a forbidden relationship, rhetoric promises much but delivers very little. Politicians, educators, mental health professionals, and even parents use rhetoric because if protects our fragile sensibilities and disguises our prejudices, biases, and fears around issues of race, gender, class, sexual orientation, disability, and religion. Preventing Prejudice: A Guide for Counselors, Educators, and Parents, Second Edition, helps to close the gap between those two extremes, and equips us all with a valuable and precious tool for confronting the many prejudices we often find it difficult to engage, let alone admit to ourselves. Beyond rhetoric, this text is an authentic expression and plea that challenges each of us to build alliances across demographic boundaries in order to fight an insidious social disease. Drs. Ponterotto, Utsey, and Pedersen succeed in dislodging us from our comfortable categories of intellectual, emotional, behavioral, and spiritual apathy, and invites us to transcend the amount of social disappointment and despair and strive towards a more hopeful and optimistic future.

Preventing Prejudice, Second Edition, is a critical resource book for educators, counselors, and parents to learn more about how to handle prejudice, and should be required reading for all of us who work with diverse populations. I was thrilled to see the second edition, and was most impressed with the authors’ blend of scholarship and practical applications. It is a powerful book that helps us to see that we can make a difference in fighting prejudice. The authors have significantly expanded on the excellent first edition in a practical and nonjudgmental way, and most importantly, provide a concrete and proactive approach to reducing prejudice. The authors hope that by providing individuals with more knowledge and an opportunity to practice prejudice reduction, we can indeed combat prejudice in its many forms. That hope is realized by this excellent book.

In our culturally diverse society, educational and helping service professionals have a need to understand the complex nature of prejudice and what may contribute to the prevention or maintenance of such beliefs. This book provides invaluable information on the historical and theoretical context for the development of prejudice, and offers key insights to help professionals understand counselor, educator and parental roles in the prevention of prejudice. Furthermore, professionals will find the descriptive information on exercises, measures, and other resources (e.g., books, videos/films, organizations) essential tools in their efforts to educate and sensitize others about the varied ways in which prejudice affects our lives.

Preventing Prejudice, Second Edition, is a tour de force in understanding the harmful effects of prejudice and racism on intergroup relations. Thoroughly researched and comprehensive in scope, this book offers state of the art information on the causes and consequences of racial prejudice. The authors move beyond analysis to offer practical solutions for reducing prejudice. One of the book’s unique contributions to the multicultural literature lies in the authors’ ability to simultaneously address both professional (e.g., educators and counselors) and lay (e.g., parents) audiences. Without a doubt this book is one of the most important resources that advocates for social justice and human rights can own. Preventing Prejudice should be required reading for all counselors, educators, and mental health professionals.

I did not think it was possible, but the Second Edition of Preventing Prejudice is even better than the first! The authors have blessed us with a volume filled with relevant information about the causes and consequences of prejudice and discrimination, along with proactive strategies for reducing and ameliorating prejudice. Not only must individuals who are serious about preventing and eradicating prejudice read this book, but they also should ensure that it is a treasured work in their collection! The Second Edition of Preventing Prejudice is destined to be on everyone’s all-time top ten list of books in the area of prejudice reduction and social justice action.

Preventing Prejudice: A Guide for Counselors, Educators, and Parents, Second Edition, is must reading for anyone who is interested in better understanding what they can do to address the complex forms of prejudice, racism, and other forms of cultural oppression that continue to exist in our contemporary society. Ponterotto, Utsey, and Pedersen have truly produced a masterpiece that highlights many practical strategies counselors, educators, and parents can do to foster a greater level of social justice and mental health in our 21st-century, culturally- and racially-diverse society. If I had to recommend one book for counselors, educators, and parents to read this year that addresses these issues, this would be it!

This book is an essential reference for people working in the fields of multiculturalism, counseling, and education. The model of prejudice that this book uses reflects the most recent scholarship on the psychological impact of race and racism. This perspective considers prejudice not as an abhorrent isolated act or tendency, but as an expression of an individual’s level of racial identity in the context of societal racism. This holistic point of view locates the individual within cultural and societal systems of which he or she is a part. Individual prejudice and societal racism are considered together, as are the cost to both to people of color and to Whites (the latter is frequently ignored). One especially valuable feature of this new edition is the emphasis on parents and educators. It opens the book to new audiences, particularly teachers and parents who have tremendous influence on the formation of the next generation. It gives added teeth to the word "preventing" in the title. To the extend that anti-racism education can be made a regular feature of elementary and high school curricula, this book may help a student address very serious issues before they become entrenched in his or her personality. So often, anti-prejudice training is remedial; this book is extraordinary because it truly focuses on prevention. In academia, we frequently lament the gap between theory, research, and practice. These authors suggest that the ideas put forward are in fact amenable to practical application and empirical validation and, in each case, they provide the means to do so.