Racial Identity Development and Stereotypes in Childhood and Early Adolescence: Understanding the Path of Resistance

在具有里程碑意义的布朗诉教育委员会案（1954年）发生近60年后，不平等现象仍然困扰着美国的教育体系。虽然教育公平的明确障碍（例如法律）已经到位，但助长教育不平等的隐性态度和信念仍然存在。例如，认为美国黑人不如美国白人聪明的文化观念仍然存在，并对儿童的自我概念、发展和学业成绩产生了影响。关于刻板印象和身份过程的现有研究主要集中在青少年和成年人身上，主要集中在个人坚持或适应这些刻板印象的方式上。然而，最近的实证研究表明，文化刻板印象的影响可能早于中学时期。这个博士后项目的双重目标是了解(a)儿童时期种族认同的起源和早期发展，以及(b)年轻人挑战或抵制主流文化刻板印象的方式。这些目标是通过跨学科的工作来实现的。Andrew Meltzoff（赞助科学家）和Leoandra Onnie Rogers（博士后），以及学习和脑科学研究所（I-LABS）的支持，这是华盛顿大学最先进的研究中心。在这些研究中，对不同种族公立学校的小学学龄儿童进行深入访谈和测试，提供了种族刻板印象如何在不同发育年龄和种族群体中塑造种族认同的衡量标准。这些数据来自明确的口头报告，然后被用作输入，以改进内隐认知测试，以捕捉种族刻板印象影响儿童内隐种族身份的方式。本研究旨在增加刻板印象过程在青春期之前如何运作的知识，并为探索与教育不平等相关的心理因素奠定基础。智力优势：种族认同研究的理论和方法丰富多样。本研究整合理论观点与方法方法来检视种族认同的形成。重点是儿童早期对青少年时期之前关于种族认同过程的文献空白的反应。从发展和社会心理学的新研究技术的使用增加了一个跨学科的观点，种族认同的文献。这项研究还为年轻人挑战刻板印象的方式提供了新的信息。通过认识到儿童具有抵抗负面种族刻板印象的能力，并调查为什么有些儿童能够成功地做到这一点，它使我们能够揭示抵抗过程如何抵消文化刻板印象的有害影响。此外，该项目通过使用明确的、深入的访谈技术，为身份研究提供了新的方法工具，以帮助设计更多适合研究幼儿的定量措施。更广泛的影响：这项研究的结果有可能通过减少刻板印象对青少年发展的影响，特别是对少数群体的影响，来影响教育不平等。通过更好地了解儿童如何理解种族刻板印象，例如与智力有关的刻板印象，教师可以更好地教导他们反对有害的信仰，否则这些信仰可能会损害他们的学习成绩和职业追求，特别是在STEM等代表性不足的学科领域。这些信息对父母、教师和其他从事儿童工作的人员以及儿童本身都是有用的，在社会层面上有相当大的好处。I-LABS在儿童学习和教育方面与联邦、州和地方机构以及公私合作伙伴关系建立了伙伴关系。通过I-LABS进行这项研究创造了将科学发现传播给可以使用它们的人的能力。

Nearly 60 years post the landmark case Brown v. Board of Education (1954), inequality still plagues the nation's education system. While explicit barriers to educational equity (e.g., laws) have been put in place, implicit attitudes and beliefs that foster educational disparities remain. For example, the cultural belief that Black Americans are less intelligent than their White American counterparts still persists, and has implications for children's self-concepts, development, and academic outcomes. The existing research on stereotyping and identity processes focuses primarily on adolescents and adults, and chiefly on the ways that individuals adhere or accommodate to these stereotypes. Yet, recent empirical research suggests that the influence of cultural stereotypes may start earlier than middle-school. The dual objectives of this postdoctoral project are to understand (a) the origins and early development of racial identity in childhood and (b) the ways that youth challenge or resist prevailing cultural stereotypes. These objectives are achieved through interdisciplinary work conducted by Drs. Andrew Meltzoff (Sponsoring Scientist) and Leoandra Onnie Rogers (Postdoctoral Fellow), and the support of the Institute for Learning and Brain Sciences (I-LABS), a state-of-the-art research center at the University of Washington. In these studies, in-depth interviews and tests with elementary school-age children in racially diverse public schools provide a measure of how racial stereotypes shape racial identity across developmental ages and racial groups. These data, which come from explicit verbal reports, are then used as input to refining tests of implicit cognition to capture the ways that racial stereotypes inform children's implicit racial identities. This research aims to add to the knowledge of how stereotype processes operate prior to adolescence, and also to lay the groundwork for exploring psychological factors related to educational inequality. Intellectual merit: The racial identity literature is vast and diverse in theory and methods. This research integrates theoretical perspectives and methodological approaches to examine racial identity formation. The focus is on early childhood responds to a gap in the literature concerning racial identity processes prior to the adolescent years. The use of new research techniques from developmental and social psychology adds an interdisciplinary perspective to the racial identity literature. The research also contributes new information on the ways that youth challenge stereotypes. By recognizing that children possess the ability to resist negative racial stereotypes, and investigating why some children are successful at this, it allows us to uncover how resistance processes might counteract the pernicious effects of cultural stereotypes. Moreover, the project provides new methodological tools for identity research by using explicit, in-depth interview techniques to help design more quantitative measures that are suitable for studying young children. Broader impacts: The findings from the study have the potential to impact educational inequality by diminishing the effects of stereotypes on youth development, for minority groups in particular. With better understanding of how children interpret racial stereotypes, such as those related to intellectual ability, teachers are better positioned to teach them to contest pernicious beliefs that otherwise may undermine their academic performance and career pursuits, particularly in disciplines where they are underrepresented such as STEM fields. Such information is useful for parents, teachers and other practitioners working with children, and the children themselves, with considerable benefits at a societal level. I-LABS has established partnerships with federal, state, and local agencies and public-private partnership on childhood learning and education. Operating this research through I-LABS creates the ability to disseminate the scientific discoveries to people who can use them.