Children’s use of racial and ethnic concepts often goes unnoticed, even by adults in daily contact with them. This is illustrated by the responses of classroom teachers and the center director to preliminary reports on our research. Debi wrote two research reports, one for the classroom teachers and one for the director. After reading the reports, the teachers insisted to Debi that she must have been observing some other children and that these are not our kids. The director seemed determined to “guess” the identity of children whose incidents Debi described at a meeting. Throughout the episodes Debi described, he interrupted with remarks like I’ll bet that’s Sarah you’re talking about, isn’t it? His determination to attach names to the children revealed his investment in “curing” racism. He seemed determined to discover the culprits so unlearning might begin.
Adults’ strong need to deny that children can use racial and ethnic concepts is also revealed in the next account. Here two children are engaged in a discussion of “what” they are. Debi is sitting with all the children on the steps to the deck playing “Simon Says.” “Simon,” a child selected by teachers to lead the game, directs the main action, while Debi observes that Rita (3.5: White/Latina) and Louis (4: Black) are engaged in their own private side activity. While the game continues, Rita and Louis discuss what they are. What are you? Louis asks Rita, and without waiting for her reply announces, I’m Black and you’re White. No, she retorts, correcting him, I’m not White, I’m mixed. Louis regards her curiously, but at this moment Joanne, the lone Black teacher in the classroom, intervenes. You’re not mixed, Rita, you’re Spanish, she informs the child. What race am I? Joanne continues, trying to get the children to change the subject and glancing over at me anxiously. Rita replies, Mixed. Mixed!? Joanne, laughing, responds, Mixed with what? Blue, Rita says, looking only at her hands. Joanne is wearing a solid blue outfit. Oh no, honey, Joanne says, I’m Black too, like Louis, not mixed. What an interesting conversation you guys are having. Rita says nothing in response, and Louis remains silent throughout Joanne’s attempt at dialogue. Suddenly, “Simon Says” ends and the kids run to the playground, escaping Joanne’s questions. Joanne smiles and remarks to Debi, Boy, it’s really amazing what they pick up, isn’t it?
When Joanne intervened, Rita and Louis had to refocus their attention from a discussion between themselves about what they “are” to responding to Joanne’s questioning. The adult interruption silenced Louis completely and made Rita defensive and wary. As other research has demonstrated, adult involvement in children’s discourse can result in changes in the nature of the children’s relations (Danielewicz, Rogers, and Noblit 1996). Rita realized that she must avoid sanctions when Joanne introduced her own racial identity into the game, attempting to distract the children from what Joanne perceived as an argument based on racial differences. However, the children were engaged in an appropriate discussion about their origins. Rita is indeed a “mixed” Latina, for her mother is from one Latin American country and her father is from another Latin American country. Rita understood this and had on other occasions described trips to visit her father’s home. Louis is indeed Black and views Rita as White. Rita seemed to be trying to extend the concept beyond skin color and thus to educate Louis, until the teacher interrupted. Joanne’s assumption seemed to be twofold: that Rita was confused and that as a teacher Joanne must act preventively. Here the teacher focused on quashing prejudice rather than seizing an opportunity to listen to the children and discuss their racial and ethnic perspectives. Adults tend to control children’s use of racial and ethnic concepts and interpret children’s use of these concepts along prejudice-defined lines. Clearly, the social context of children’s learning, emphasized in the interpretive approach, includes other children and adults, but our accounts also demonstrate the way in which children’s sophisticated understandings are developed without adult collaboration and supervision….
Conclusion
Through extensive observation, this study has captured the richness of children’s racial and ethnic experiences. The racial nature of children’s interactions becomes fully apparent only when their interactions are viewed over time and in context. Close scrutiny of children’s lives reveals that they are as intricate and convoluted as those of adults.
Blumer (1969:138) suggests that any sociological variable is, on examination, “an intricate and inner-moving complex.” Dunn (1993) notes that children’s relationships are complex and multidimensional, even within their own families…. By exploring the use of racial concepts in the child’s natural world, instead of trying to remove the child or the concepts from that world, we glean a more complete picture of how children view and manipulate racial and ethnic concepts and understandings.
For most children, racial and ethnic issues arise forcefully within the context of their interaction with others. Most of the children that we observed had little or no experience with people from other racial or ethnic groups outside of the center. For these very young children, who are having their first extensive social experiences outside the family, racial and ethnic differences became powerful identifiers of self and other. Whether this is also true for children who do not experience such a diverse range of exposure to racial and ethnic concepts is beyond the scope of this project. However, over the 11 months we observed dozens of slowly evolving transformations in these children’s racial and ethnic explorations and understandings. For many children, racial and ethnic awareness increased. Some, like Taleshia, regularly explored racial identities by comparing their skin color with that of others. Others, like Renee, faced crises over identity. For still others, racial and/or ethnic matters arose intermittently, but these matters did not seem to be central to the children’s explorations. Children varied in how often they expressed or indicated racial or ethnic understandings, but we were unable to observe each child constantly and cannot make a more detailed judgment on this issue.
To fully understand the importance of children’s racial and/or ethnic understandings, the nuanced complexity and interconnected nature of their thinking and behavior must be accepted and recognized. Measures of racial and ethnic awareness should consider not only children’s cognitive abilities but also the relationships that children develop in social situations….
Regarding the racial and ethnic hierarchy, young children understand that in U.S. society higher status is awarded to White people. Many understand that simply by virtue of their skin color, Whites are accorded more power, control, and prestige. Very young children carry out interactions in which race is salient. Racial knowledge is situational, and children can interact in a race-based or race-neutral manner, according to their evaluations of appropriateness. In children’s worlds race emerges early as a tool for social interaction and quickly becomes a complex and fluid component of everyday interaction.
The behaviors of the children in this preschool setting are likely to be repeated in other diverse settings. The traditional literature accepts that children display prejudice by the time they arrive at school, but offers no explanation about the acquisition of this prejudice beyond it being an imitation of parental behavior. We expect continuity of children’s racial and ethnic categories across settings, for children reveal a readiness to use their knowledge of race and ethnicity.
The observed episodes underscore problems in traditional theories of child development. When children fail cognitive tasks framed in terms of principles such as conservation and reciprocity, researchers often conclude that children lack the cognitive capability to understand race. However, surveys and observations of children in natural settings demonstrate that three-year-old children have constant, well-defined, and negative biases toward racial and ethnic others (Ramsey 1987). Rather than insisting that young children do not understand racial or ethnic ideas because they do not reproduce these concepts on adult-centered cognitive tests, researchers should determine the extent to which racial and ethnic concepts—as used in daily interaction—are salient definers of children’s social reality. Research on young children’s use of racial and gender concepts demonstrates that the more carefully a research design explores the real life of children, the more likely that research can answer questions about the nature of race and ethnicity in children’s everyday lives.
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