Colorblind or Color-Conscious: Parent Responses to Young Children’s Inquiries of Racial Injustice

• In Event: How Caregivers Address Social Injustices to Promote Children's Wellbeing

Abstract

Introduction
No longer can the commonly held misconception that young children are “racially innocent” be perpetuated. A myriad of research has shown that before the age of two, children begin to see race and use it to make sense of the world (Aboud, 1988) and by the age of three to five, children hold beliefs defined as prejudiced (Cristol & Gimbert, 2008; Nesdale, 2007) and have developed a ‘white bias’ (Beneke et al., 2019). Given the current sociopolitical context of the dual pandemics of COVID-19 and systemic racism, where prevalent discourses of racism, sexism, and homophobia dominate, it becomes even more important for families to engage in conversations with young children where race and racism is made explicit. Grounded in sociocultural theories of development and Critical Race Theory, this study examines how parents are responding to their children’s inquiries about racial injustice during the time of the dual pandemics of COVID-19 and systemic racism.
Methods
In the summer of 2020, 40 primary caregivers (95% mothers; 38% Hispanic; 53% White) of children in kindergarten participated in a 60-minute Zoom interview. The interview focused on families’ thoughts and perceptions about parenting and learning in the time of the dual pandemics related to COVID-19 and racial injustice. The qualitative data was initially analyzed through open coding to identify emerging patterns and themes relevant to the research questions. This process involved reviewing, comparing, labeling, and categorizing participants’ responses (Corbin & Strauss, 1990). The interviews were then coded for a priori themes informed by the literature and theoretical frameworks.
Results
Findings revealed two themes that emerged from parents’ responses to teaching their children about racial injustice, either a colorblind (73%) or a color-conscious (27%) response. Within the colorblind theme, two patterns emerged of focusing on treating everyone as equal (45%) and believing that children are too young to be exposed to topics of racial injustice (23%). A parent explained, “I don't know if she really understands what that really means yet. I don't think that she would really even have any questions regarding it, to be honest, but we kind of treat everybody the same…” Only parents who had color-conscious responses reflected and drew on their own identity and experiences about race when they spoke to their children about racial injustice. A parent explained, “I'm Native American, and my husband undocumented, so a lot of times assignments were to come home from school, about certain subjects in areas that I would not agree with and I talked to my kids about the truth of the stories…I speak to him about the past and knowing the history.”
Discussion
Within early childhood education, there is an underrecognized need to support not only early childhood programs, but also parents in learning how to navigate having challenging conversations about race and racism in developmentally appropriate ways. Opportunities must be created for parents to have a space to reflect on their own experiences with race so that they can have honest, sincere, and trustworthy conversations regarding racial injustice with their children.

Authors

• Monica Molgaard, University of California - San Diego
  Presenting Author

• Alison Wishard Guerra, University of California - San Diego

• Shana R Cohen, University of California, San Diego

• Yan Jiang, University of California - San Diego

• Naomi T Lin, University of California - San Diego