The salience of race in young children growing up in an all-White community.

Abstract

The salience of race in cognitive and affective responses to racial differences was measured in 93 preschool children who lived in a virtually all-White community. Photographs of unfamiliar Asian-American, African-American, and European-American children were used to assess the relative salience of race and sex in children's categories and preferences. Results showed that race was more salient than sex when subjects categorized other people but that both traits were equally salient when they classified themselves. In their preferences, sex was the stronger factor in their positive choices, but race was more salient in their negative ones. Children preferred members of groups whom they saw as similar to themselves, but the converse relation between dissimilarity and rejection was not found. Consistency between cognitive and affective responses increased with age.Many thanks to the children, parents, and teachers who participated in this project. I am grateful to Beth Sabino who conducted interviews and to Randi Walsh and Heather Coon who assisted in coding and analyzing the data. I also thank Louise Singleton, Robert Shilkret, Barbara Burns, and two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on earlier drafts of this article.

Racial Perceptions of Young Children: A Review of Literature Post-1999

“…Prejudice is fostered through a belief that individuals of another group are homogeneous; working at changing that belief can be effective in reducing prejudice (Bigler and Liben 1993). In addition, Ramsey (1991) suggests that efforts to challenge negative attitudes and promote positive attitudes toward other racial groups needs to begin early in one's life. Because teachers are important socialization agents (Grant and Agosto 2006), they and the curriculum offered may play a role in the formation of positive attitudes in children even at the preschool level.…”

Metaphors in anti-bias educational program: Educators’ voices

“…Çocuklar farklılıkları tanımayı yaşamın ilk üç yılında öğrenirler ve bu süre içinde empati becerilerini de geliştirirler (Brewer, 2006). Özellikle erken çocukluk dönemdeki çocuklar, ırk ve cinsiyet farklılıklarının vurgulandığı sosyal sınıflamalara oldukça duyarlıdır (Katz, 2003;Ramsey, 1991). Bu dönemde ayrımcılık karşıtı kavramlar çocuğun yaşamından ne kadar uzakta olursa, çocuğun bu kavramlarla ve türevleriyle bağ kurması da o kadar zor olacaktır.…”

“…Children learn about differences and develop empathy skills in the first three years of their lives (Brewer, 2006). Children in early childhood are quite sensitive to the social classes emphasizing differences of race and gender (Katz, 2003;Ramsey, 1991). The more distant children are to the antibias concepts, the more difficult it is for them to associate with these concepts and their derivatives.…”

Ethnic Cognition and Affect of British-Born Chinese Children

“…This is possibly due to the higher salience of ethnicity sensed by those who form a distinctive minority in their contexts (McGuire, McGuire, Child, & Fujioka, 1978). This would mean that ethnic salience will diminish with increasing diversity in a given context, and this has been supported empirically (Dutton, Singer, & Devlin, 1998;Ramsay, 1991). However, whether a group is the "majority" or a "minority" is not only a matter of numbers, but carries connotations of power status.…”

“…Furthermore, although the ethnic Chinese in Britain form a growing population, they are still a very small minority within the "ethnic minority" population (ONS, 2011) and this is likely to make their ethnicity salient in general (Dutton et al, 1998;Ramsay, 1991). Further studies may illuminate such contextual issues by sampling from more "normative" settings (such as state day schools-considering the very small numbers of Chinese pupils per school in that system) Chinese children as well as children from other ethnic groups with a wider range of ethnic identifications.…”