Helping White parents do better
As we move toward being a majority minority nation, it’s important to continue to examine ways to reduce racial bias. Here, I present three studies that may be helpful. First, Xu et al. (2023) published “White Children's Prosocial Behavior Toward White Versus Black Peers: The Role of Children's Effortful Control and Parents' Implicit Racial Attitudes” in Child Development. Here’s the edited abstract:
White children's effortful control (EC), parents' implicit racial attitudes, and their interaction were examined as predictors of children's prosocial behavior toward White versus Black recipients. Data were collected from 171 White children (55% male, Mage = 7.13 years, SD = 0.92) and their parent in 2017. Prosocial behavior toward White peers was predicted by children's higher EC. When predicting prosocial behavior toward Black peers and prosocial disparity (the difference between White and Black recipients), parents' implicit racial attitudes moderated the relation between children's EC and children's prosocial behavior. Specifically, children's EC was positively associated with prosocial behavior toward Black peers (and negatively related to inequity in prosocial behavior) only when parents exhibited less implicit racial bias.
The sample isn’t huge and the data collected seven years ago, but I found it helpful to see that parents’ implicit racial biases adversely impact their children’s prosocial behavior toward Black peers. We can expect better effortful control to facilitate prosocial behavior and it is tragic that this doesn’t happen when parents exhibit greater implicit bias. Nancy Eisenberg has a long history of work on prosocial behavior. Here, she worked with colleagues on both the first study and this next one which also looks at prosocial behavior, this time in conjunction with empathy. Spinrad et al. (2022) published “White Children's Empathy-Related Responding and Prosocial Behavior toward White and Black Children” in Child Development. Here’s its abstract:
Relations among White (non-Latinx) children's empathy-related responding, prosocial behaviors, and racial attitudes toward White and Black peers were examined. In 2017, 190 (54% boys) White 5- to 9-year-old children (M = 7.09 years, SD = 0.94) watched a series of videos that depicted social rejection of either a White or Black child. Empathy-related responses, prosocial behaviors, and racial attitudes were measured using multiple methods. Results showed that younger children showed less facial concern toward Black than White peers and greater increases with age in concern and prosocial behaviors (sharing a desirable prize) for Black, compared to White, targets. Children's facial anger increased with age for White but not Black targets. The findings can extend our understanding children's anti-racism development.
We have known for a long time that young children tend to be sexist, racist, classist, etc. as they initially notice categories. Here, it’s not surprising that the children closer to age 5 are less empathic toward Black peers. The fact that, as children move through elementary school, they exhibit more concern and prosocial behavior is a positive sign. However, even as they get closer to age 9, they are still angrier when they see a White child rejected which tells us that there is work to do. The final study offers a suggestion. Perry et al. (2024) published “White Parents’ Racial Socialization During a Guided Discussion Predicts Declines in White Children’s Pro-White Biases” in Developmental Psychology. Here are the edited abstract and impact statements:
Although parent-child conversations about race are recommended to curb White U.S. children’s racial biases, little work has tested their influence. We designed a guided racism discussion task for U.S. White parents and their 8–12-year-old White children. We explored whether children’s and parents’ (a) pro-White implicit biases changed pre- to post-conversation, (b) racial socialization messages (color conscious, external attributions for prejudiced behavior and colorblind racial ideology [CBRI]) predicted changes in each other’s implicit biases, and (c) associations varied by the type of racism (subtle vs. blatant) discussed. Children’s and parents’ biases significantly declined, pre- to post-discussion. Parents’ color conscious messages predicted greater declines and messages reflecting CBRI and external attributions predicted smaller declines in children’s bias. These patterns were observed during discussions of subtle, but not blatant bias. Effects of children’s messages on parents’ bias were mixed. Our findings suggest that color conscious parent–child discussions may effectively reduce implicit pro-White bias in White children.
Although they believe it to be beneficial, many White U.S. parents avoid discussing racism with their children or downplay the importance of race when they have these conversations. In the current study, we developed a method to encourage color conscious conversations in White families and found that parents’ and children’s racial biases reduced after the discussion. Our findings suggest that parent–child discussions about racism may effectively reduce racial biases in White families.
This study makes a lot of sense to me and may be helpful to clinicians working with parents whose children have engaged in racial bullying in school and online. As children move through late elementary school and into middle school, it may be especially important to intervene while children are more open to parental influence.