Teacher and Parent Beliefs About Addressing Race in Preschool

• In Event: 16.056 - Examining the Role of Social and Emotional Learning in Young Children's Racial Development

Abstract

Racial socialization practices are one promising way to help children of color develop SEL skills such as a more positive sense of self and fewer behavior problems (Caughy, O’Campo, & Muntaner, 2004). Racial socialization includes teaching about discrimination, heritage, and the commonalities and differences among racial groups. Currently, racial socialization lies with parents, yet most do not know what to say to their children about race (University of Pittsburgh, 2016). Preschool offers an additional context for supporting children’s SEL through racial socialization, partly because teacher-child relationships influence SEL too. There may be barriers, however, because many teachers believe children are too young to understand race (Boutte, Robertson, & Powers-Costello, 2011). This color-blind perspective conceals important aspects of a child’s identity and may unintentionally harm the development of a positive teacher-child relationship (Husband, 2012). The present study addresses the following questions.

1. Do parents and teachers believe young children notice race?
2. Do parents and teachers believe racial socialization should be taught in early childhood classrooms?
3. Do racial socialization practices relate to teacher-rated, teacher-child relationship quality?

Methods & Results
Data included parent and teacher surveys and teacher interviews from classrooms serving 129 racially and ethnically diverse students (65% African American), across 9 Head Start classrooms. Teachers (3 Black, 6 White) completed the Student Teacher Relationship Scale (10 items, Pianta, 1992) for each child and were interviewed at the end of the year.
RQ1: When parents were asked if they thought their child noticed racial difference, 55% of parents of Black children and 59% of parents of children from mixed races said yes. Only 29% of parents of White children said yes.
Qualitative analyses of teacher interviews revealed 6 out of 9 teachers adopted a color-blind approach to teaching (2 Black, 4 White). These teachers believed children did not notice or make choices based on race (e.g. who to sit by/play with).
RQ2: Overall, 77% of parents wanted their teacher to talk directly about race. Of these parents, 43% preferred their teacher speak generally (e.g. ‘we treat everyone equally’) and 37% wanted teachers to use race related issues to create whole group learning opportunities.
For teachers, 100% said race should be addressed only when brought up by children or during holidays.
RQ3: Teachers were categorized as expressing high/low racial socialization in their interviews. Three teachers had high racial socialization and using a t-test, this category was not significantly related to how strong their reported relationships were with their Black children.
Discussion
Our findings suggest color-blind approaches still exist, yet parents want teachers to teach their children about race. Having high racial socialization beliefs, however, was not necessary for having strong relationships with their Black children. Prioritizing the discussion of racial socialization in ECE classrooms may help to support the early development of crucial SEL skills, and stronger teacher-child relationships.

Authors

• Jennifer Briggs, University of Pittsburgh

• Shannon Beth Wanless, University of Pittsburgh