I found this study that was published online quite awhile ago trough an article in the Daily Mail. They sum up the research as follows:
Children who are given anti-racism lessons in school are more likely to be intolerant outside the classroom, a major study found yesterday.
It said accusing white pupils of racism causes animosity, and discussing sensitive ethnic concerns such as honour killings paints minority group children in a bad light.
The survey said children who live in mixed neighbourhoods are often free of hostility towards other racial groups.
Counter-productive: A Dutch study has found children who are given anti-racism lessons in school are more likely to be intolerant outside the classroom
But it found that ‘when more attention in class is being paid to the multicultural society, the liberalising effect of positive contact in class on youngsters’ xenophobic attitude decreases’.
The study, published in the European Sociological Review, was based on a survey of 1,444 pupils aged 14 and 15 in ten schools in the city of Nijmegen. I read the actual research and indeed the paper is quoting the study correct (besides the fact that it is not really a that new research), but… the study also describes that this is probably the case for persons who already have an extreme point of view. Still the researchers do think it’s better that pupils have positive experiences rather than explicit classes.
Abstract of the research:
This study examines xenophobic attitudes of secondary school pupils in the Netherlands. This study builds upon a previous research in three ways. First, attitudes of pupils from both the ethnic majority and minority groups are examined. Second, the impact of positive as well as negative inter-ethnic contacts both within and outside the school environment is determined. Finally, hypotheses about inter-ethnic contacts are tested while simultaneously reckoning with alternative mechanisms that might explain xenophobic attitudes. Cross-classified multilevel regression analyses show that the level of xenophobia is lower when pupils evaluate their inter-ethnic contacts as positive, and higher when they perceive these contacts as negative. However, the impact of positive inter-ethnic contact in class disappears or even reverses when multiculturalism is more emphasized during lessons.