About this poster

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Panel information
Panel 5. Identity

Abstract

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White children learn, internalize, and act upon racist beliefs as early as three years old, and these beliefs most often continue and solidify in adolescence and adulthood. However, some white youth and adults seek to develop anti-racism by educating themselves about racism, engaging in ongoing self-reflection about their whiteness (e.g.,white privilege, racialized emotions), and taking anti-racist action. In a recent paper, Hazelbaker and colleagues (2022) advanced a developmental model of anti-racism among white children and youth that outlines the following elements of this process: a) key foundational abilities (e.g., understanding of race), b) anti-racist competencies (e.g., understanding white privilege), c) anti-racist action (e.g., collective action), and d) promotive contexts (e.g., school). While the model is grounded in empirical research on white children and youth’s racial identity and racial bias, further research focused on instilling anti-racist competencies is needed. To this end, the current study examines white children and youth’s understanding of white privilege.

Data for this study come from a larger study of family racial socialization practices conducted in Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota. Data were collected at two time points, 2018 and 2020-2021. Around this time, two Black male Minnesotans, Philando Castile and George Floyd, were murdered by police, sparking protests locally and nationwide. The current study examines semi-structured interview data from a subsample of white children and early adolescents (N=33) that participated in interviews at Wave 1 (Mage=10.02, SD=2.60; range: range=5.97-14.13 years) and Wave 2 (Mage=12.71, SD=2.60; range=8.49-17.06 years; 18 boys, 11 girls, 4 non-binary/another gender identity). The interview protocol probed participants about their racial identity (e.g., “What does it mean to be [identity]?”) and awareness of racial discrimination (e.g., “Sometimes kids get treated differently than other kids because of their skin color, race or ethnicity. Have you ever noticed this?”). Analysis was conducted in two phases following a Consensual Qualitative Research procedure. First, data were sorted into domains in accordance with the Hazelbaker et al., model. White privilege emerged from participant responses, and these data were then coded inductively to identify emergent themes and patterns.

Preliminary results indicate that in the process of talking about their identities and experiences, many participants (n=21) spoke about white privilege, to varying degrees, at either Wave 1 (n=4), Wave 2 (n=13), or across both Waves (n=4). Three levels of understanding of white privilege were identified (see Table 1). In excerpts coded as nominal mention, participants (n=14) named white privilege without elaborating or simply stated that they do not experience racial discrimination because they are white. In excerpts coded as emerging understanding, participants (n=7) described the advantages of whiteness (i.e., civil rights, societal opportunities, safety) or recognized that whiteness is seen as the norm in society. Finally, a few children and youth (n=8) touched upon critical reflection, as exhibited through discussions of the systemic roots of racism, the power it provides to white people, or a recognition of the participant’s responsibility to take action to rectify racial inequity. Next steps include exploring patterns across childhood and adolescence, and analyzing shifts in awareness of white privilege across the two waves of data collection. This study provides new evidence of how white children and youth discuss white privilege, advancing developmentalists’ understanding of the development of a key anti-racist competency and emphasizing the need for further inquiry into this developmental process.

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