Youth and Adolescence

Newsweek cover story “See Baby Discriminate” reviews research on how children come to understand race. According to the article, many parents want their kids to be colorblind, and worry that “even a positive statement . . . still encourages a child to see divisions within society.” This is because, Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman of Newsweek write, people assume “that children see race only when society points it out to them.” This is not the case. The authors note that parents’ silence on the topic merely tells children that race is something about which they cannot ask. As shown in a study by Rebecca Bigler, children notice differences, and “it takes remarkably little for children to develop in-group preferences.” Based on a longitudinal study done over the first six years of 100 white children and 100 black children’s lives, Professor Phyllis Katz concluded that “this period of our children’s lives, when we imagine it’s most important to not talk about race, is the very developmental period when children’s minds are forming their first conclusions about race.” Furthermore, a number of studies suggest there may be “developmental windows—stages when children’s attitudes might be most amenable to change.” Researchers have found that, in order to be effective, “conversations about race have to be explicit, in unmistakable terms that children understand.” Telling children that “everybody’s equal” is not enough. For more information on the latest child development findings, read “NurtureShock”—a new book by Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman.