Scientists agree that race is not biological.
These tendencies toward inherence and essentialism are especially harmful when we think about children’s efforts to understand racial disparities. These attitudes are what psychologists call “essentialist” beliefs, or essentialism, because they attribute group differences to some deep, underlying and often unknown “essence.” Children often go one step further and think that groups are biologically or innately different. In the same way, children are more likely to attribute a wealth difference between communities to the groups’ capabilities or intelligence rather than something external, such as a historical advantage one group has had over another.
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Adults often fall into this trap: if someone cuts you off on the highway, you are likely to assume they are a bad driver rather than assume, for instance, that they are a good driver who happens to be rushing to a hospital in an emergency. In general, when we see someone behave in a distinctly different way from others, we assume there is something inherently different about that person. Here, a psychological principle called the “inherence bias” comes into play. Second, we know that when children notice differences between people or groups, they usually look for an explanation.
Around the same age, children begin forming preferences for wealthier kids with more “stuff,” which, given the link between wealth and racial background in the U.S., may result in white children preferring and choosing to play with other white peers over Black peers. In other words, very young children are aware of persistent racial disparities in wealth. For example, psychologists have found that kids as young as age four will consistently pair white children with higher-wealth items (such as nice cars and bigger houses) and Black children with lower-wealth items (for instance, run-down cars and smaller houses). As psychologists who study how parents and teachers communicate with kids about race, we can attest to an ever growing body of scientific evidence that suggests these laws are failing the children they purport to help.įirst, years of research make it evident that kids notice racial and ethnic disparities from an early age. The legal language seems, for the most part, protective of children. is “fundamentally or systematically racist or sexist.” The Iowa law also specifies that teachers must ensure that no student feels “discomfort, guilt, anguish or any other form of psychological distress on account of that individual’s race or sex.” The laws in other states lay out similar logic. In Iowa, for example, a law prohibits any teaching that suggests the U.S.
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Teachers across the country are avoiding explicit conversations about race, racism and racial inequality because of a series of recent laws passed in several states. Instead she evaded the question and continued her lesson without offering historical context for her students to understand the present. Hester might have also discussed how European and American settlers brutally killed many Native Americans in the 18th and 19th centuries. government’s forcible movement and isolation of tribes. About 20 percent live on reservations, and Hester could have used that to open a discussion of the U.S. She could have pointed out that today Native Americans live in cities and towns across the U.S. There are many ways their teacher, Melanie Hester, might have answered. “Where are the Native Americans now?” asked fifth grade students in an Iowa City classroom last year.
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