Volume 12, Number 3, 2004
Children as young as 3 or 4 are able to recognize that people have a variety of skin colors and other physical characteristics, according to Eun Rhee, assistant professor of psychology.
And, she says, children in a multicultural society like the United States also begin developing value judgments about racial differences at an early age.
"Our question is: Where do they get this?" Rhee says. "The relationship between children's attitudes and their parents' attitudes turns out to be relatively small. So, they're picking this up from somewhere else."
Rhee, with the support of a five-year, $675,434 grant from the National Institute of Mental Health, has begun exploring this issue, as well as other aspects of when and how children develop a sense of their own and others' racial identities.
"It is important to understand how racial identity evolves during childhood and its effect on children's self-evaluation, group esteem and mental health and how children of color cope with perceived discrimination," Rhee says.
"Although perceived discrimination is said to have adverse effects on children of color, there has not been much research about children, especially Asian-American children, in this area."
Working with graduate and undergraduate research assistants, Rhee plans to interview 300 children aged
7-11 and as many of their parents as possible. The group--evenly divided among African Americans, Asian Americans and white Americans--will be asked a series of structured and open-ended questions and will be followed over four years.
"There are certain constancies that can't be changed, such as gender, age and race, and our goal is to find out how children understand these constancies and how they view these, especially race, as they grow older," Rhee says. "We want to find out how racial minority children perceive racial identity and racial discrimination and how they cope with it."
In a letter summarizing the project, which Rhee sends to parents of children she hopes to interview, she explains that her research seeks to answer four key questions:
To answer the final question, and because of the significant effect parents have on all aspects of their children's lives, Rhee says it is important to interview them. Those interviews will explore the parents' perceptions of discrimination, their beliefs about racial groups and the support they give their children. For example, Rhee says, "some parents may endorse egalitarianism, others may try to prepare their children for discrimination, and others may foster racial pride."
Previous research has not settled the question of whether a strong identification with one's racial group has adverse effects, such as low self-esteem and psychological distress, or whether it protects children from the effects of racism and leads to better mental health, according to Rhee.
In her study, interviewers meet individually with children and ask them about such topics as how they feel about themselves in terms of their gender and race. An example, Rhee says, would be to tell an Asian-American child, "Some Asian kids feel very happy about being Asian American," and then ask, "How do you feel about it?"
Interviewers also give each child a choice of answers about what is important to them, including how they choose their friends. They try to assess how the youngsters perceive others in terms of race and how children of color negotiate between the mainstream culture and their own racial or ethnic culture. Similar interviews will be held with parents.
"Our goal is to discover how children view themselves and their racial group and how their perceptions and coping strategies change as they mature, so that we can identify pathways to positive growth," Rhee says.
In order to determine what shapes children's attitudes about racial identity, interviewers also ask them about the television shows they watch, the books they read and what they hear other youngsters say about racial groups.
Rhee says the development of racial identity in children has not been studied to a great extent and that such research is especially important as the United States undergoes major demographic changes.
"By the year 2050, it is predicted that children of color--African Americans, Asian Americans, Latino Americans, Native Americans--will be the majority," Rhee says. "Asian Americans are one of the fastest growing minority groups in the United States."
--Sue Moncure