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The topic for this week is race and ethnicity, and how these phenomena affect human relationships. Racial injustice is quite acute in modern society, so this topic is extremely relevant. In particular, it is essential to understand how racial and ethnic stereotypes are formed in childhood. The article I wish to summarize is Using racial and ethnic concepts: The critical case of very young children by Debra Van Ausdale and Joe R. Feagin. In the course of the study, the authors investigated the functioning of racial and ethnic concepts among children from three to five years old (Van Ausdale & Feagin, 1996). Thanks to this, they were able to track how these concepts function in peoples minds at such an early age and develop over time. The researchers also studied how childrens behavior changes depending on the presence of an authoritative adult nearby.
The research methods the researchers seem to have employed were as follows. They noted childrens communication elements, related to race or ethnicity, within a small school group. According to the research results, these elements could be noted one to three times a day (Van Ausdale & Feagin, 1996). The studys main results were the understanding that certain stereotypes are indeed present in the minds of children, even at such an early age. For example, some children are reluctant to interact with others because of race, leading to inevitable conflicts. To obtain these results, the authors used some of the main concepts of the current week, such as the white races current dominance. For example, it has been observed that children understand this dominance and follow these established patterns. Thus, some adult stereotypes indeed appear in childrens minds at a very early age, influencing their entire future life.
Reference
Van Ausdale, D., & Feagin, J. R. (1996). Using racial and ethnic concepts: The critical case of very young children. American Sociological Review, 61(5), 779-793.
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