Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Black Children, White Bias, Victoria J. Porter

Student Work

Empirical studies of young children’s racial attitudes and identity extend over more than five decades. The pioneering work of Clark and Clark in the 1930’s involved the use of brown and white dolls to study racial preferences, awareness, and identity o f African American children. On items that were designed to measure racial preferences and attitudes, most African American children attributed the positive characteristics to the white doll and the negative characteristics to the darker skinned doll. The current study investigated the racial identity and attitudes of African American and Caucasian children. The effects of socio-economic status (SES), as well …