What We Know
“The way we talk to our children becomes their inner voice.” —Peggy Omar
Children begin to form their racial identity and racial biases in early childhood.
Infants learn to identify with their family and caregivers. As they grow, they add more and more layers to their identity—extended family, neighborhood, church, school. They generally think of their in-groups (groups with whom they share a sense of belonging) as being good people. It then follows, in their simple logic, that people in out-groups (others different from them) must not be as good. (Aboud, 1988) (Rutland, Abrams, & Levy, 2007)
Children are not colorblind.
Even if well-intentioned, a color-blind approach “does not work for the simple reason that we cannot not see race”. (Jennifer Harvey, Raising White Kids, p. 26)
Children’s racial attitudes tend to reflect community norms about race. (Hirschfeld, 2012)
As children reach school-age, they have generally observed and internalized that one particular group has favored status in our culture—being white has advantages. At this stage, not only do most white children express a preference for friends who are white, but often children of color prefer to associate with white friends as well.
The most effective way to reduce bias is through cross-ethnic friendships.
Direct contact with those from a different group can debunk stereotypes and result in more positive attitudes toward individuals from the other group. This is known as inter-group contact. (Allport, 1954)
Optimal conditions for developing positive peer relationships and thereby reducing prejudice include:
- Equal status between group members
- Support of institutional authorities (such as teachers, or other authority figures)
- Working toward a common goal
- Cooperation, not competition
(Tropp and Prenovost, 2008)
Regrettably, opportunities for direct contact between children of diverse backgrounds are not easy to find in our segregated communities.
Children who lack opportunities to form cross-race friendships can benefit from reading stories that portray friendships between members of their group and another group.
This imagined or extended contact can enable children to regard such intergroup friendships as positive, thereby promoting less biased attitudes toward other groups.
(Wright, Aron, McLaughlin-Volpe, & Ropp, 1997) (Cameron, Rutland, Hossein, & Petley, 2011)
Stories accompanied with conversations form a powerful combination for diminishing racism and other forms of bias in very young children.
Parents may assume that their children’s attitudes are similar to their own even though they have not explicitly discussed race with them. However, many are surprised to find out they are not. (Bigler, 1999) The attitudes of parents and children are more similar in families where parents do have discussions with their children about race. (Katz, 2003)
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