Posted on 07/16/2006 1:27:10 PM PDT by Lorianne
One of the first studies ever to examine the development of "modern racism" in children finds that by fourth grade, children are making decisions about fairness that take race into account. This finding, from researchers at Lafayette College in Easton, Pa., is published in the July/August issue of the journal Child Development.
Research shows that many adults make decisions about hiring, healthcare benefits, etc. that are biased against African Americans even while believing that all people should be treated equally, notes lead author Ann V. McGillicuddy-DeLisi, Ph.D., the Marshall R. Metzgar Professor of Psychology. "Nevertheless, under some circumstances adults discriminate even when there is no racially based reason for their behavior." This behavior is not traditional hostile racism, she says, but reveals a subtle racial bias known as "modern racism."
To identify whether this bias affects children's reasoning about fairness and, if so, when it appears, the researchers evaluated 87 white children, 52 second graders and 35 fourth graders. They chose these age groups because second graders are at an age when racism and other negative attitudes that increase through preschool years have begun to diminish, while by fourth grade, children tend to develop group identification that shows strong ethnic/racial preferences even as they say they're not racially prejudiced.
The researchers told two stories about three characters who produced artwork. One produced more artwork than the other two, i.e., was more productive. One was poor, i.e., needy, while the third was the oldest, i.e., age-entitled. The characters' teacher sold their artwork at a fair, resulting in an unexpected reward. The teacher gave the money to the characters and told them to divide the money among themselves in the fairest way.
With the stories, about one-third of the children saw pictures in which the oldest character was black, one-third saw pictures with a productive black character and one-third saw pictures with a needy black character. In each case, the other two characters were white. The children were asked to allot the money to each of the story characters in the fairest way and explain why their choice was fair. Finally, children rated the fairness of different patterns of distributing the money based on four different principles of justice (age entitlement, equality, equity and benevolence).
Second graders' responses were based on equality principles and didn't vary with the character's race. Fourth graders' responses, however, showed children considered the characters' race. For example, they gave a greater share of the money to white needy characters than black needy characters, while black productive characters received greater shares than white productive characters.
The findings suggest that 9- and 10-year-old white children take race into account as they decide what is just and fair.
"There are several implications to this finding," said Dr. McGillicuddy-DeLisi. Among them:
* Everyday interpretations of events are likely to be influenced by race in subtle ways that children, parents, teachers and practitioners who work with children don't recognize.
* Minority children who see outcomes that disadvantage or advantage them compared to white children may attribute the motives of others' behaviors and the possibility of success to espoused strategies such as hard work and productivity.
* White children and adults, perhaps unaware of their biases, may believe in equality principles while behaving in unacknowledged racist ways.
The implications of this work suggest that "a focus on the developmental progression of modern racism may hold the best possibility of addressing its effects," notes Dr. McGillicuddy-DeLisi. "There has been little research that focuses on effective prevention of modern racism. This study suggests there may be a developmental window of opportunity for intervention in the early years of elementary school, a time when children's moral reasoning is strongly tied to principles of equality. By the time children are 9- to 10-years-old, however, this window of opportunity appears closed."
Just doing what their union-led teachers have taught them to do.
Blah, blah, blah..... whites are racists....
Anybody see the inherently racist aspects of the study?
Everyone knows that when there are no black people around that all white people are eating caviar and drinking champagne and plotting ways to hold blacks down.......
Experts say...Clearly white children need to be extrerminated. /sarc
[* White children and adults, perhaps unaware of their biases, may believe in equality principles while behaving in unacknowledged racist ways.]
Yes, only white children and adults behave in unacknowledged racist ways. You'd never find blacks or hispanics behaving this way...ever.
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"A developmental window of opprotunity exists..."Liberal speak.Translation:let's start indoctrinating(brainwashing)children into politically correct thought as soon as possible.
So kids become more racist the longer they attend school?
Obviously, school's bad for kids.
There's no money to be made in black racism. In fact, you'd probably find your government grant dried up as well as your job prospects.
The flaw in the study is not to recognize that fourth graders may have begun forming their own (and not "racist") conclusions as to differing tendencies of behavior of members of ethnic groups based on their experience and observations with other children of those ethnic groups in their schools.
For example, even by the fourth grade children may begin to form the view that East Asians tend to take a more serious approach to school, as a result of their home family and cultural environment. Obviously the children will observe many exceptions as well.
Children also may notice that more "needy" black children, as a result of single motherhood, a lack of discipline at home and poor parenting, tend to be disruptive, bullying and not serious about schoolwork, even more so than "needy" white children. Again, obviously children will have the opportunity to observe individual black children in many cases in which the opposite is true, but nevertheless children are quite observant of tendencies in different groups.
Perhaps for this reason the fourth grade children were more likely to over-reward black children depicted in the story as being productive, positive social participants, and more likely to under-reward the "needy" black children in the stories whom they may associate with their own observations of black schoolchildren.
Those aspects of society that overtly and covertly attribute value and normality to white people and Whiteness, and devalue, stereotype, and label people of color as "other", different, less than, or render them invisible. Examples of these norms include defining white skin tones as nude or flesh colored, having a future time orientation, emphasizing individualism as opposed to a more collective ideology, defining one form of English as standard, and identifying only Whites as great writers or composers.Although some animals have pigmented skin, most have pale flesh. Planning for the future is a good thing--not sure how that's "racist" beyond the implication that Blacks don't. Non-communism is also a good thing, only racist if one believes Blacks to be communist. Assignment of one form of English as standard has been sound practice for centuries even when all the variations in question were spoken by Whites.
About the only thing on that list I might regard as racist would be an inappropriate exclusion of minorities from lists of great people. Since most great writers and composers were, in fact, White, it is entirely appropriate that a list of such people should be dominated by Whites. It would not be right to exclude someone who happens to be a great writer or composer merely because he's Black, but nor would it be right to include mediocre writers or composers on a list because they're "Black".
Interesting that the study didn't include kids who were black, brown, red, yellow, or whatever.
Quite
Quite
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