Mapping the Social Landscape. Группа авторов
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Reading 14 Using Racial and Ethnic Concepts: The Critical Case of Very Young Children
Debra Van Ausdale and Joe R. Feagin
Many of the readings in this volume use ethnographic fieldwork, which involves scholars spending time observing or interviewing the research population, as Mary Romero did in her study of Chicana domestics (Reading 3) or Meika Loe did in her study of waitresses (Reading 9). While the first reading in this section on socialization did ethnographic research on parents and the gender identity of their children, this selection uses ethnographic research to observe young children and their understandings of race and ethnicity. The reading excerpted here, from a 1996 article in the American Sociological Review, is by Debra Van Ausdale and Joe Feagin. Van Ausdale and Feagin, both sociologists, observe preschool children and their conceptualizations of race and ethnicity. Contrary to what most people think, Van Ausdale and Feagin find that children as young as three to five years old already are using racial and ethnic concepts to define others and shape their social interactions with other children.
Since the 1930s social science has examined children’s attitudes toward race. Research has focused on situations in which race has meaning for children and on how children form racial identities (Clark and Clark 1939; Spencer, Brookins, and Allen 1985), create in-group racial and ethnic orientations (Aboud 1977; Cross 1987; Spencer 1987), form attitudes toward others (Williams and Morland 1976), and use race in friend selection (Schofield and Francis 1982). The literature clearly demonstrates that racial identification and group orientation are salient issues for children (Ramsey 1987).
Cognitive development theories propose stage models to explain children’s acquisition of racial and ethnic knowledge (Aboud 1977; Porter 1971). These models assume an age-related progression in children’s ability to interpret racial and ethnic information, usually depicting children as proceeding in linear fashion toward cognitively mature adulthood. Most research focuses on children over five years of age; very young children are rarely studied….
Researchers have rarely sought children’s views directly, beyond recording brief responses to tests. Few have interviewed children or made in-depth, long-term observations to assess social attitudes, limiting the ability to investigate more fully the nature of children’s lives. Children’s abilities have been seriously underestimated by reliance on techniques that do not make real-life sense to children (Donaldson 1978). Investigations often have assumed that young children are incapable of using abstract concepts (Holmes 1995). An emphasis on psychological testing is often coupled with the notion that children have limited understandings of race and ethnicity (Goodman 1964; Katz 1976; Porter 1971). Children are typically assumed to have temporary or naive views about social concepts until at least age seven. Prior to that age, children’s use of concepts differs from that of adults in form and content.
Source: Debra Van Ausdale and Joe R. Feagin, “Using Racial and Ethnic Concepts: The Critical Case of Very Young Children.” American Sociological Review, 1996, Vol. 61 (October: 779–793). Copyright © 1996 by the American Sociological Association. Reprinted with the permission of the authors and the American Sociological Association.
Little attention has been devoted to how children create and assign meaning for racial and ethnic concepts….
We provide data indicating that racial concepts are employed with ease by children as young as age three. Research based on the conception of children as incapable of understanding race (Menter 1989) presents an incorrect image of children’s use of abstractions. Drawing on Willis (1990) and Thorne (1993), we suggest that notions of race and ethnicity are employed by young children as integrative and symbolically creative tools in the daily construction of social life.
The Research Approach
We gathered experiential data on how children use racial and ethnic understandings in everyday relationships. Influenced by Dunn’s (1991) approach, we made unstructured field observations and recorded everyday behaviors. Our data come from extensive observations of 58 three-, four-, and five-year old children in a large preschool in a southern city. The school employed a popular antibias curriculum (Derman-Sparks 1989). Over an 11-month period in 1993, we systematically observed everyday interactions in one large classroom containing a very diverse group of children. The center’s official data on the racial and ethnic backgrounds of children in the classroom are: White = 24, Asian = 19, Black = 4, biracial = 3, Middle Eastern = 3, Latino = 2, and other = 3….
Like the children and teachers, the senior author (hereafter Debi), a White woman, was usually in the classroom all day for five days a week. As observer and playmate, Debi watched the children and listened to them in their free play and teacher-directed activities. Over 11 months Debi observed 370 significant episodes involving a racial or ethnic dimension, about 1 to 3 episodes per day. When children mentioned racial or ethnic matters, Debi noted what they said, to whom they spoke, and the context of the incident. Extensive field notes were entered immediately on a computer in another room when the children were otherwise occupied. This was done to preserve the details of any conversations and the accuracy of the data….
We began with the assumption that very young children would display no knowledge of racial or ethnic concepts and that any use of these concepts would be superficial or naive. Our data contradicted these expectations.
Using Racial and Ethnic Concepts to Exclude
Using the playhouse to bake pretend muffins, Rita (3.5: White/Latina) and Sarah (4: White) have all the muffin tins. Elizabeth (3.5: Asian/Chinese), attempting to join them, stands at the playhouse door and asks if she can play. Rita shakes her head vigorously, saying, No, only people who can speak Spanish can come in. Elizabeth frowns and says, I can come in. Rita counters, Can you speak Spanish? Elizabeth shakes her head no, and Rita repeats, Well, then you aren’t allowed in.
Elizabeth frowns deeply and asks Debi to intercede by telling her: Rita is being mean to me. Acting within the child-initiated framework, Debi asks Rita, If only people who speak Spanish are allowed, then how come Sarah can play? Can you speak Spanish, Sarah? Sarah shakes her head no. Sarah can’t speak Spanish and she is playing, Debi says to Rita, without suggesting she allow Elizabeth in. Rita frowns,