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Dayton Daily News education reporter Scott Elliott writes about schools, kids, teaching and learning.
Home > Blogs > Get on the Bus > Archives > 2005 > October > 01
Saturday, October 1, 2005
Race and young children
Here’s what Milwaukee teacher Rita Tenorio’s first graders think they “know” when it comes to race: They believe it’s better to be light skinned than dark.
Tenorio’s article in a magazine called Rethinking Schools (I first spotted a shorter version in NEA Today) centers around an issue I find fascinating — do very young children notice racial differences and sense racial bias or stereotypes?
The short answer is yes.
This was the subject for one of the most interesting education stories I’ve ever written — a story about a program to reduce racial prejudice by focusing on early elementary school children in Springfield.
I remember talking to kindergarten teachers about their kids and they were adamant — six year olds did not notice race, they were very accepting and inclusive, the teachers told me. Then I showed them the research study led by University of Dayton professor Ron Katsuyama. Here’s an except from the story I wrote in 1998 for the Springfield News Sun:
“The study showed they are affected by the stereotypes of society while even their teachers often don’t sense it. On one test, researchers asked children to choose between a picture of a black child and of a white child for a playmate.
“In schools with high minority enrollment (29 to 40 percent), there was no preference,” said Katsuyama. “Schools with low minority enrollment (5 to 10 percent), there was a two-to-one preference for white children over black — even among black children. That was kind of surprising to me.”
When asked how their students would fair on these tests, teachers universally predicted they would choose fairly, picking black playmates as often as white ones.
“That blacks would prefer white playmates is a red flag,” Katsuyama said. “It indicates a prevailing stereotype in our society.”
The research showed as children get older, they increasingly become more aware of race as a source of tension, Katsuyama said. For the study, participants were shown a picture of two children fighting and asked to explain what happened. Third graders were much more likely than kindergartners to include racial factors in their account of how the fight started.
Katsuyama said some cultural or racial tension is natural. Programs like Reaching Our Children aim to impart skills to children to deal with others when tension arises.
“Some conflict may be inevitable when people of diverse backgrounds interact,” he said. “It’s the working through conflict that leads to greater understanding and appreciation of differences. Children are so receptive to these types of experiences.”
There are many lessons here. Among them:
—This is a strong argument for creating diverse schools. As the study showed, when diverse kids attended school together, they tended to understand each other more and show less bias. It’s schools with very low diversity that show the worst signs of bias, which then leads to prejudice.
—We must understand that bias is subtle. It’s not that most people of one race actively hate people of other races. And most acts of prejudice are not violent, they’re small unfairnesses that accumulate, causing frustrations to build.
—It’s up to us, as adults, to create change. Your kids, even your very young kids, observe you much more closely than you might notice. They internalize your preferences and make them their own. They want to be like you.
Modeling good behaviors in your daily life is among the best lessons your child can ever learn.
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