“They’ll Tell the Truth”: Investigating Whom U.S. Youth Seek Out to Learn About Racial Inequality

• In Event: Whom to Trust and How to Share: Children and Adolescents’ Social Learning in Intergroup Contexts

Abstract

Understanding that racial inequality between Black and White people in the United States is caused not by individual factors (differences in intelligence or effort) but by structural factors (systemic discrimination) is crucial to judging these inequalities as wrong (Elenbaas et al., 2020). However, while U.S. youth can attribute racial inequality to structural forces by late adolescence, developmental scientists do not yet know when or why children and early adolescents may begin to endorse structural explanations for racial inequality. Broadly, parents, peers, teachers, and the media have all been implicated as potentially important sources of information on which youth may rely for help in understanding inequality (Diaz et al., 2022). Yet, whom children and adolescents seek out for answers about racial inequality and why they trust certain people over others for inequality information has not been systematically examined.

To address these questions, this study drew on the social reasoning developmental model (Killen & Rutland, 2011) to investigate when and why 8-14-year-old children and early adolescents begin to endorse structural attributions for racial inequality between Black and White people in the U.S., whom children seek out for information in this context, and why they trust those people.

Participants (N = 202; 49% White, 47% girls, middle-SES) reported the extent to which they agreed or disagreed with four different statements reflecting individual (e.g., differences in effort) and structural (e.g., differences in opportunities) attributions for the causes of racial inequality between Black and White people in the U.S. and explained their answers. Next, participants reported the likelihood they would seek out four different sources of information – family members, peers, teachers, media – to learn more about each causal attribution, which source they would be most likely to seek out, and why.

Between 8 and 14 years, participants increasingly endorsed structural attributions for racial inequality (see Figure 1), but no significant age differences emerged for endorsement of individual attributions. Preliminary analyses of participants’ reasoning point to increasing recognition of racism but consistent beliefs in meritocracy underlying these changes. Across ages, participants were more likely to seek out their parents than any other sources for more information about each explanation for racial inequality, with the exception of 14-year-old’s, who were equally likely to go to their parents or peers (see Figure 2). Preliminary analyses of participants’ reasoning point to beliefs about expertise and honesty underlying these differences.

Thus, between late childhood and early adolescence, youth in this study increasingly endorsed structural attributions for racial inequality and, across ages, parents were a valued source for further information. This study provides new evidence of the learning processes underlying shifts in children’s and adolescents’ thinking about racial inequality, with implications for interventions targeting causal understanding of racial inequality early in development.

Authors

• Ellen Kneeskern, University of Rochester
  Presenting Author

• Laura Elenbaas, Purdue University, West Lafayette