Children ‘less tolerant’ as they get older

Young people become less tolerant of refugees and immigrants as they grow up, new research suggests.

They are also more likely to believe in tougher jail sentences for young offenders and cutting benefits for the unemployed.

The proportion of youngsters who believe that Britain does not have room to accept any more refugees rose by 20 percentage points between the ages of 11 and 18, the study, by the National Foundation for Educational Research, reveals.

And almost four-fifths of 18-year-olds agree that people who were not born in Britain but live here now should be required to learn English, compared to half who believed the same at age 11.

The Citizenship Education Longitudinal Study followed around 24,000 young people from the ages of 11 to 18, asking questions about their attitudes, attachment and engagement with citizenship-related issues.

It concludes that there is a “hardening” of attitudes as youngsters get older.

The findings show a massive rise after age 16 in the proportion of teenagers who think jail sentences should be increased and benefits cut.

While 26 per cent of Year 11 pupils said the government should increase sentences for young offenders, this rose to 45 per cent by the time they reached Year 13. And 38 per cent of Year 11 students thought unemployment benefits should be cut, rising to 58 per cent among Year 13.

The study concludes: “There has been a hardening in the cohort’s citizenship attitudes towards equality and society during the course of the study, particularly in their attitudes towards refugees and immigrants but also in their attitudes towards some key aspects of social citizenship, such as jail sentences and benefit payments.”

This could be because people tend to become more conservative as they get older, but there may also be cultural, social and political reasons, the study concludes.

It did find that teenagers became more supportive of human and women’s rights as they got older.