Young Children’s Racial Development: The Process of Learning Who Was and Was Not a Slave

• In Event: Rethinking and Redoing Race in Early Childhood Education: Policies, Perspectives, and Pedagogy

Abstract

This paper is a personal account of my daughter’s discussion of slavery with her racially diverse first-grade classroom and how this discussion affected the next year of her life, especially her ideas about who she is and who she is not. The discussion and her multilayered reactions to it offer insight into the possibilities and limitations to theorizing the racial development of young children. Drawing from reflection, observation and first-hand accounts of racial discussions, this paper argues that young children’s racial development may demand a broadening of theory as well as rethinking of what constitutes a “best practices” classroom. Findings suggest that early childhood best practices for academic development may not be the same as those necessary for racial development.

Early childhood education is an important site for both development and identity formation. This paper seeks to look at early childhood education as a site of racial development and apply two theoretical frames around racial identity to a six-year old’s examination of race through experiences at school. These two important theoretical lenses to see race are critical race theory and racial identity formation but neither are usually connected to young children. Racial identity formation (Parham, 1989; Helms, 1994; Tatum, 2004) began as a psychological approach to race addressing how individuals see themselves and those around them as “raced” and then how individuals progress from racial unconsciousness to healthy racial identities. Critical Race theory (Ladson-Billings & Tate, 1995; Ladson-Billings, 2005; See also Crenshaw, Gotanda, Peller & Thomas, 1995) is more sociological, demonstrating the systematic, historical nature of racial oppression and how such oppression marginalizes particular groups of people and continues political, educational and societal inequities. Do such theoretical frames connect with our knowledge of how young children learn about themselves and the world? Can either or both account for nonlinear, child-centered attitudes about race and identity?

This paper and presentation begin with detailing the first-grade slavery discussion including what was said, which children made comments and how the teacher reacted. To examine the discussion and especially one child’s reaction to the discussion, it is first viewed through lenses of critical race theory and racial identity formation to formulate a working theoretical perspective on racial development in young children. Then multiple challenges are laid out in terms of the racial development of young children. First, unlike other domains of development including physical, social, academic or emotional, racial development is not necessarily welcomed by educators, parents or policymakers. Second, practices that allowed the discussion to happen involve best practices that are not usually valued including a racially diverse classroom where not one ethnic, linguistic or racial group was numerically dominant and third, young children would need to be in classrooms where agency and freedom and expression are the norm. This paper argues that without adult intervention in early childhood educational settings, children’s racial development will draw from society’ view of race rather than from the curious inquiry of young children.

Author

• Jennifer Keys Adair, The University of Texas - Austin