Children and adolescents in Nepal: if only the world was fairer

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Some children grow up in poverty with few prospects to improve their lot. Others have the world at their feet from birth. How do children perceive these unequal opportunities, and how do they deal with them? In search of answers, LMU developmental psychologist Jeanine Grütter travels to Nepal, where she has been conducting research with Nepalese colleagues for several years. Her work thus foregrounds a neglected perspective, as these questions have largely been investigated in Western contexts to date.

“Nepal places a lot of emphasis on diversity and inclusion and has passed many equality laws,” explains Jeanine Grütter. “Yet it also has the history of a caste system, which was banned because it led to systematic discrimination.” However, this past still shapes many aspects of society. Surnames, for example, can reveal former membership of a certain caste. “This continues to influence how people think, especially in rural areas, where many people live in poverty. So discrimination persists, but it is more hidden and correlates strongly with poverty. This makes it interesting to research.” At the same time, social problems and inequality are clearly visible in Nepal. The country is stagnating economically and ranks high on the global corruption index. “People are concerned about this, particularly young people.”

Children want justice and recognize social barriers

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Children generally have a sense of whether things are fair from a very early age. Initially, their personal interactions determine their fairness decisions. Four-year-olds, for example, are already keenly attuned to fairness when sharing. A few years later, they can recognize systemic inequalities.

Grütter’s project in Nepal confirms this: “Eight- and nine-year-olds are aware that there are significant differences based on people’s origin. They recognize social hierarchies and expect people to be treated accordingly. But they themselves would like this to change. They want fairness and an end to disadvantage and discrimination.”

But children’s desire for more justice often runs up against other expectations in their immediate environment. How freely children and adolescents can realize their own ideas of fairness in everyday life strongly depends on their environment. Compared with Germany, for example, children and adolescents in Nepal remain much more tightly integrated in their family context. “It’s important in Nepal not to defy the expectations of family and community.

This is where conflicts begin. Children and adolescents realize when their parents don’t want them to make friends or have romantic relationships with peers from disadvantaged families.” Conversely, parents from lower social classes prevent their children from having contact with well-off peers for fear they will suffer discrimination.

Teachers can have a real impact

Jeanine Grütter’s research shows that schools and teachers can play an important role in how children deal with fairness issues. There are private and public schools in Nepal, and children from disadvantaged families mostly attend the latter. “The government tried to make systematic changes. At least 15 percent of students at private schools must come from disadvantaged families and receive scholarships. There are also private schools that are more diverse and award many more scholarships as a way of enhancing equality,” explains Grütter.

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The LMU psychologist compared the attitudes of children and adolescents according to which type of school they attended: “In public schools, where most people from disadvantaged backgrounds attend, many people have lost their faith in social mobility. In private schools with little diversity, children and adolescents focus primarily on the status quo and social hierarchies. Children and adolescents from more diverse schools, by contrast, believe in social justice and perceive more opportunities for mobility. They regard it as wrong when people are disadvantaged and would like to break these hierarchies.”

Grütter’s studies show that the attitude of the teacher is critical for the attitudes of children and adolescents. “If the teacher places a strong emphasis on participation, equality, and democracy, then even children from more socially advantaged families are more likely to embrace these values.”

In a follow-up project with colleagues in Nepal, Grütter will now develop proposals for teacher training to cultivate awareness of the social relevance of the topic and the role teachers play.

Future research

The research project in Nepal shows that children and adolescents have a strong desire for justice and social change. Jeanine Grütter finds this noteworthy, as many children there grow up in a context marked by pronounced social inequalities, with some of them suffering acute discrimination. At the same time, the expectations of family and community play an important role. “One could also expect the opposite: that children accept social hierarchies as given or reconcile themselves to the system over time. Our findings reveal, however, that they have a distinctly critical attitude toward the system.” An important remaining question is therefore to find out how children and adolescents become agents of change.

Another study, which Grütter is planning to conduct in Germany, will track children and adolescents over a longer period. The goal is to identify the factors that determine whether they advocate for a just society in the long run. After all, the results from Nepal are readily transferable to other countries – “more than you’d think,” remarks Grütter. This includes Germany, where the number of children affected by poverty has been rising for years.

Publications:

Jeanine Grütter u.a.: Adolescents’ perceptions of social mobility: Reasoning about intergroup friendship and marriage in Nepal. In: Child Development 2026

Jeanine Grütter u.a.: Socioeconomic status biases among children and adolescents: The role of school diversity and teacher beliefs in Nepal. In: Child Development 2022

Jeanine Grütter u.a.: Adolescents’ own and parental expectations for cross-group friendship in the context of societal inequalities. In: Journal of Social Issues 2021

Jeanine Grütter u.a.: Children’s and adolescents’ reasoning about distributive fairness and educational inequalities. In: International Journal of Behavioral Development 2024

Manishi Srivastava, Jeanine Grütter u.a.: Adolescents’ beliefs about caste-essentialism and their social location in Nepal. In: Cognitive Development 2025