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Children 's Awareness Of Racial Attitudes And Preferences

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In 2012, Margaret Beale Spencer, child psychologist and a leading researcher the field of child development, was brought on by CNN to design a pilot study that examines children and race. The study aimed to reveal children 's’ awareness of racial attitudes and preferences. The results were shown during “Kids on Race: The Hidden Picture”, on AC360°.
After watching this study play out, it was obvious that children seem to be given messages about what is viewed as the good/positive race, and which is viewed as the bad/negative, race. Although it might be expected that each child would choose their respective race as the one they gravitate to for the ‘positive’ questions, and a different race for the ‘negative’ questions, what was unfortunate was that both White and Black children showed a bias towards Whites. Since children are so strongly influenced by their environments, and the people around them, we can assume that they are being exposed to implicit racism, and subconscious bias attitudes. As stated by Dr. Spencer, “We are still living in a society where dark things are devalued, and white things are valued.” Antonia Darder worked for many years to understand how members of bicultural groups learn to function in both their primary culture, and that of the dominant, mainstream culture in the society in which they live. This includes cultural conflicts, racism, and other forms of cultural invasion (p. 48). In order to ease the tension caused by conflicting

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