Perceptions of Racism in Minority Children

描述（由申请人提供）：本项目的目标是：1)了解不同少数民族背景的儿童如何感知、解释、概念化和处理种族主义（种族歧视和偏见）；2)利用这些信息创建有效和可靠的工具来衡量少数民族儿童对种族主义的看法，这些工具将基于发展理论，并将对不同种族的儿童具有显著意义；3)在研究中使用这些工具，旨在了解感知种族主义对少数民族儿童发展能力和行为健康的影响，以及少数民族人群在健康和医疗保健结果方面的差异。该项目的初始阶段将利用定性的社会科学方法，如焦点小组，深入了解不同年龄组的非裔美国人、西印度/加勒比、波多黎各和盎格鲁-欧洲（多数）儿童的偏见和歧视的发展和理解。根据这些数据，将开发问卷工具，用于可靠地衡量儿童对种族主义的看法。定量方法将用于工具构建（例如，项目和因素分析）和有效性和可靠性测试，以及跨文化概念和度量等效性分析（例如，项目反应理论，共识分析）。将为不同年龄组和种族制定不同的文书。这些工具随后可用于今后的研究，以确定种族主义（一种社会心理变量）对少数民族儿童行为健康和发展的影响，作为导致急性和慢性疾病的压力源，以及对保健和保健服务问题的影响。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The objectives of this project are: 1) to gain an understanding of the ways children of different ethnic minority backgrounds perceive, interpret, conceptualize, and process racism (racial discrimination and prejudice); 2) to utilize this information to create valid and reliable instruments for measuring perceptions of racism in minority children that will be based on developmental theory and will have salience for children of different ethnicities; and 3) to use these instruments in studies aimed at understanding the effects of perceived racism on the developmental competencies and behavioral health of minority children, as well as on the disparities in health and health care outcomes seen in minority populations. The initial phase of this project will utilize qualitative social science methodologies such as focus groups to gain insight into the development and understanding of prejudice and discrimination in African American, West Indian/Caribbean, Puerto Rican, and Anglo-European (majority) children of different age groups. From these data, questionnaire instruments will be developed that will be used to reliably measure perceptions of racism in children. Quantitative methodologies will be used for instrument construction (e.g., item and factor analysis) and in the testing of validity and reliability, as well as for the analysis of cross-cultural conceptual and metric equivalency (e.g., item response theory, consensus analysis). Separate instruments will be developed for different age groups and ethnicities. These instruments can then be used in future studies to determine the effects of racism (a psychosocial variable) on minority child behavioral health and development, as a stressor contributing to acute and chronic illness, as well as on health care and health services issues.