Preventing Prejudice

A Guide for Counselors, Educators, and Parents

From the Foreword: Cultural diversity and multiculturalism are not just slogans, they are reality and promise. The first edition of Preventing Prejudice was a bold and important effort to address these complex problems. Its success was heralded by the prestigious award for "Outstanding Book on the Subject of Human Rights in North America." Ponterotto, Utsey and Pedersen took this outstanding work, and expanded and improved on it. Preventing Prejudice is based on theory and research. It is also based on practice and experience, and it is informed by the people it is meant to reach. What do people really think, or know or feel? Are you racist because you are white? Are you immune from racism if you are gay? Doesn’t embracing your ethnic or racial group make you prone to bias against other groups? And, therefore, isn’t advocating racial identity a threat to the very sensitive awareness of others advocated here? Are you better or worse off psychologically if you belong to multiple racial categories? And is there a personality type that supersedes and triumphs over it all? Preventing Prejudice addresses these questions and issues and many more with direct, clear and cogent ideas and instruction. The reader will not just know the answer; she will know what to do about it.

Drs. Ponterotto, Utsey, and Pedersen have put together a book that has the potential to make an important impact in our world. Representing a dramatic improvement over the award-winning first edition, the authors have written a comprehensive book on prejudice prevention based on current theories and research in psychology and education. Remarkably, although reflecting the highest degrees of scholarship, this book offers easy access to a wide range of audiences including counselors, educators, administrators, and teachers. In deed, this book is a must-read for anyone who is interested in reducing prejudice and all types of -isms (e.g., racism, heterosexism, and sexism) in our world.

Readers of the first edition will welcome this extensively revised and expanded volume, especially the attention given to the Multicultural Personality. While retaining its foundation in racial and ethnic identity development, this work equips teachers, counselors and parents with practical skills to be deliberate and intentional in preventing prejudice. Readers with particular interest in biracial, multiracial, and gay/lesbian identity development will find this book especially helpful in addressing concerns relevant to those populations. The section on Instruments and Resources for Prejudice Prevention Work is particularly useful for professionals working in the area of prejudice prevention.

The Second Edition of Preventing Prejudice: A Guide for Counselors, Educators, and Parents is a critical reference for those conducting research and training aimed to understand, reduce, and ultimately prevent prejudice. Ponterotto, Utsey, and Pedersen provide a careful review of history, definitions, theory, research, and application issues. They also add to the focus on racial and ethnic identity development by integrating theoretical and empirical developments on biracial, multiracial, and lesbian/gay identity development. Furthermore, they provide conceptual definition, elaboration, and operationalization of the concept of multicultural personality. An important and unique feature of the text is its presentation of creative exercises aimed to increase multicultural awareness and reduce prejudice in different age groups. In addition, the authors provide a rich range of resources for research and personal development including books, professional organizations, popular movies, and films as well as selected instruments to measure critical constructs in the study and prevention of prejudice. The broad scholarly scope and applicability of this text is truly impressive

This expanded and updated version of Preventing Prejudice provides a wealth of information about the causes, manifestations, and correlates of prejudice as well as practical suggestions for activities aimed at reducing or preventing prejudice. Integrating evidence from a wide variety of sources, it is a valuable resource for both researchers and educators.

At a time in the field when everyone clamors to be included in the discussion about diversity and multiculturalism, Ponterotto, Utsey, and Pedersen bring us back to our historical roots in this book. They remind us that to participate in the discourse, discerning the nature of prejudice and racism and its psychological effects on ethnic and racial groups is at our core. And, if we fail in our appreciation of this concept, then our ability to prevent prejudice becomes suspect.

This important book is as much about promoting human potential and dignity as it is about preventing prejudice. The ideas presented by Ponterotto, Utsey, and Pedersen have implications for the welfare of all oppressed, disenfranchised, and marginalized people. While laying a sound conceptual and research foundation, the authors provide practical exercises and reader-friendliness for a variety of constituents.

More than a decade since the publication of the first edition of Preventing Prejudice, Drs. Ponterotto, Utsey, and Pedersen give a much needed fresh look at the complexities of prejudice that continue to plague our society. Their book highlights hands-on remedies for counselors, educators, and parents. The text provides outstanding activities and instruction on creating contexts for change. This book is a MUST READ!

Preventing Prejudice is a must read for anyone dealing with racism and monoculturalism in today’s society. Theoretically based with relevant and masterful practical application, the authors provide teachers, parents, researchers and practitioners the necessary tools to understand and fight prejudice. I especially like the application to parents in working with their children around issues of racism and prejudice.

Preventing Prejudice: A Guide for Counselors, Educators, and Parents, Second Edition, is a courageous landmark book, in which nationally and internationally known authors have taken on a daunting challenge to combat the Hydra of Prejudice that raises its ugly heads in insidious ways in many painful "-isms." In this definitive and monumental textbook on prejudice, Ponterotto, Utsey, and Pedersen have reaffirmed their commitment to enhance their manifesto of social justice, racial equities, and human rights through proactive approaches. At the cusp of the new millennium, when problems of color and culture lines are still causing a pervasive and destructive American Dilemma resulting in interracial hate, fears, violence, and people’s abuse, this book is a much needed and welcome addition to the field of helping professions. Through their 'tour de force' of prejudice and quintessential concepts of multicultural scholarship, these authors have created a compendium of tools, and a constellation of practical and concrete strategies that are designed to intervene and prevent the scourge of prejudice. In Preventing Prejudice: A Guide for Counselors, Educators, and Parents, Second Edition, the authors have presented their new ideas on how to combat and prevent prejudice through a most impressive, persuasive, and systematic manner, written with rare lucidity, grace, and stunning clarity. It also demonstrates tremendous depth, perception, and insight into the issues relating to prejudice and its multiple related problems. This second edition has been expanded to include many new constructs of paramount importance from the multicultural personality, leading models of identity development, and African-Centered Psychology. Preventing Prejudice reflects a happy blending of didactic and experiential exercises. Inclusiveness and comprehensiveness are the hallmarks of this book. It is rich in detail and in many ways it is original, profound and provocative and destined to become one of the classic books and shining stars in the galaxy of multicultural counseling. This is superb, comprehensive, and an indispensable book both for the novice and the experienced mental health professionals. It will become a desk reference for many clinicians working with multicultural populations to provide fascinating insights and enlarge their understanding about the Hydra of Prejudice.