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ETHNIC-RACIAL IDENTITY
FORMATION IN THE
EARLY YEARS
Iheoma U. Iruka1, Stephanie M. Curenton2,
Jacqueline Sims2, Keshia Harris2, and Nneka
Ibekwe-Okafor2
Revised: May 13, 2021
1 Department of Public Policy and Equity
Research Action Coalition at Frank Porter
Graham Child Development Institute, The
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
2 Center on the Ecology of Early Development,
Wheelock College of Education & Human
Development, Boston University
Suggested Citation. Iruka, I. U., Curenton, S. M., Sims, J., Harris, K., & Ibekwe-Okafor, N. (2021).
Ethnic-Racial Identity Formation in the Early Years. Durham, NC: Hunt Institute
C
ETHNIC-RACIAL IDENTITY FORMATION IN THE EARLY YEARS
Abstract
Introducon
What is ethnic-racial identity
Racial-ethnic identity formation
The State of Evidence About Ethnic-Racial Identy Formaon
Ethnic-racial identity formation and child outcomes
Factors that support ethnic-racial identity formation
Programs supporting young children’s ethnic-racial identity formation
Assessing children’s ethnic-racial identity
Gaps in evidence regarding ethnic-racial identity formation
Recommendaons for an Acon-Oriented Approach
References
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
1
ETHNIC-RACIAL IDENTITY FORMATION IN THE EARLY YEARS
ABSTRACT
Children’s ethnic-racial identity formation is a critical aspect of their development and has implications across
the lifespan. However, there has been limited attention to children’s ethnic-racial identity formation, especially
among young children of color. This paper provides the current evidence of ethnic-racial identity formation
in the early years (ages 0-8). Guided by the literature primarily focused on older age youth, there is growing
evidence of the importance of ethnic-racial identity for young children’s cognitive and social-emotional
development, school engagement and success. The early years are a sensitive period for the formation of
positive ethnic-racial identification because it is during these years that personality is first formed, so this is an
opportunity to grow the evidence and, more importantly, include it as a critical outcome for children’s healthy
development and an area for inclusion on national, state, and local indicators of child well-being and worthy of
intervention and support. In addition to noting gaps and opportunities for innovation, we call on the need for a
cohesive infrastructure, such as a research-practice partnership, focused on developing and implementing a plan
that strengthens the research evidence while also integrating ethnic-racial identity and factors that support this
outcome in quality rating systems and standards and professional development systems.
2
ETHNIC-RACIAL IDENTITY FORMATION IN THE EARLY YEARS
INTRODUCTION
The sizeable achievement gap experienced by racially
marginalized children, parcularly Black1, Lane2, and
Nave American (Bernal et al., McCardle & Berninger,
2014), in comparison to their white (and Asian)
peers prior to formal schooling makes it worthwhile
to examine racially marginalized children’s early
experiences because of an unconscious (implicit) bias
that operates and is triggered by skin color (i.e., race),
historical oppression, or cultural dierences. Naonal
data indicates about 23 percent and 28 percent of Lane
and Black four-year-old children, respecvely, were
procient in leer recognion, while almost 37 percent
of white children (and even more Asian children) were
procient. Further, about 51 percent and 55 percent of
Lane and Black children, respecvely, were procient
in math and shape recognion; in contrast, over 73
percent of white children were (Aud et al., 2010). Nave
American3 children’s reading and math scores were
parcularly aected by the number of socioeconomic
risk factors they faced (Riser et al., 2019). Although
Asian American children’s reading skills were higher than
other racial/ethnic groups at the start of school, their
skills declined throughout the elementary years like
those of other racially marginalized children (Han, 2008).
Racially marginalized children also bear the brunt
of punive and harsh school discipline. Regarding
suspension and expulsion, the US Department
of Educaon, Oce for Civil Rights found in their
2013–14 data that Black children represent only 19
percent of preschool enrollment, but 47 percent of
preschool children receiving one or more out-of-school
suspensions; in comparison, white children represent
41 percent of preschool enrollment, but 28 percent
of preschool children receiving one or more out-of-
school suspensions were white (Oce for Civil Rights,
2016). Lane, Nave American, Asian American, and
Pacic Islander are also disproporonately represented
with in-school suspensions. Combined, this populaon
accounted for 15 percent of the K-12 school group, but
19 percent of suspensions.
Despite the achievement gap and challenges with
inequitable school discipline, many Black and Lane
children sll demonstrate strong social and emoonal
competence (Baker & Iruka, 2013; Humphries et al.,
2012; Jensen et al., 2015), and Chinese American4
families demonstrate posive emoonal competence
when they have strong parental supports (Curs &
Tao, 2020). Research indicates that Black children, in
parcular, have exible use of language and dierent
ways of storytelling (Gardner-Neble & Iruka, 2015;
Gardner-Neble et al., 2012), and grammac language
features in their narraves that are aligned with literacy
skills and cognive reasoning (Curenton, 2004; Curenton
& Jusce, 2004). Being a dual language learner (DLL),
which many racially marginalized children are, has
posive benets on various aspects of young children’s
development (McCabe et al., 2013). Further, research
has shown posive eects when specic instruconal
strategies are used to support Lane children in the
1 We use the term Black as a pan-ethnic description of anyone from the African diaspora including, but not exclusively limited
to, African Americans, Africans, Afro-Caribbeans, Afro-Latino/a, or any other group that identifies as Black and/or having any
ancestral heritage from Africa.
2 Consistent with exper ts in the field, we use Latine to refer to individuals whose cultural background originated in Latin America.
In U.S. academic circles, Latinx is being used as a gender-inclusive term to refer to people from Latin American backgrounds, but
Spanish-speakers find that Latinx is unpronounceable in Spanish. Therefore, we have opted to use the gender-inclusive term Latine,
commonly used throughout Spanish-speaking Latin American (Melzi et al., 2020).
3 While we use the term Native American as denoted in the US Census and as used in the research studies we cite, we recognize the
term is embedded in ethnic nomenclature, racial attitudes, the legal and political status of American Indian nations and American
Indian people, and cultural change (Horse, 2005). Nevertheless we recognize that Native Americans and Tribal Communities are
Indigeneous people, making it clear that this group occupied the land first, without assigning the American nationality.
4 We recognize that Asian American/Pacific Islanders have roots in at least 29 Asian countries and 20 Pacific Islander cultures
(Ghosh, 2003). We name the specif ic group based on the specific group(s) referenced.
3
ETHNIC-RACIAL IDENTITY FORMATION IN THE EARLY YEARS
classroom (Castro et al., 2017; Jensen et al., 2018).
Nevertheless, Black and Lane children’s developmental
strengths (e.g., storytelling, cooperaon) are not oen
incorporated in or valued in classroom interacons
and instrucon, which may be a missed opportunity
for fostering their learning. Nor are these strengths the
current lens through which early learning classroom
interacons are gauged. Current early learning standards
about classroom interacons limit their focus to those
posive developmental skills typically found in middle-
class, white populaons, ignoring culturally-grounded
social competence skills, like having a posive ethnic-
racial identy.
Considering the development of a posive ethnic-racial
identy as a social-emoonal skill (and arguably, also
a cognive skill) is a recent development. For instance,
the Collaborave for Academic, Social, and Emoonal
Learning, also known as CASEL, has reconceptualized
commonly held noons of social-emoonal learning
into what they refer to as transformave social and
emoonal learning (SEL) (Caven, 2020; Jagers et al.,
2018). Transformave SEL is grounded in the idea that
students learn to build strong, respecul relaonships
that appreciate people’s dierences and similaries and
learn to crically examine issues and seek collaborave
soluons to social problems. Posive racial identy
ts within this transformaonal view in terms of the
important social-emoonal skill of self-awareness,
which CASEL believes is the foundaon for equity. Social
awareness is the ability for children to understand
their personality, behavior, internal states, and their
role in social networks. Not only can a posive and
transformave view of self-awareness be crical to
white students in terms of making them realize their
power and privilege, but it is also essenal to helping
racially marginalized children develop a posive
ethnic-racial identy. Another crical aspect of the
transformave SEL view that applies to ethnic-racial
identy is social awareness. Social awareness is a child’s
ability to engage in empathy and perspecve-taking
and their ability to respect diversity. When children
develop a strong sense of social awareness, they will be
able to decipher negave stereotypic messages about
race and culture, and it will allow students to discern
racial and class power dynamics, both of which are skills
that can help children envision and co-create a new
environmental context that is not plagued by racial bias.
A focus on posive ethnic-racial identy is crucial as
scholars have found posive links between beliefs about
one’s ethnic/racial group and Black and Lane children’s
achievement and social-emoonal development
(Brown & Chu, 2012; Estela Zarate et al., 2005) and
Cherokee youth’s psychosocial outcomes (Homan
et al., 2021). Research has found that when children
receive messages about having posive self-worth
and self-identy, balanced with messages about racial
inequalies, this results in posive school grades
(Bowman & Howard, 1985; Sanders, 1997), academic
curiosity, and persistence (Neble Jr et al., 2006).
In contrast, experiences of discriminaon, real or
perceived, by teachers and peers are negavely related
to youth’s self-esteem and posively associated with
levels of anger, depressive symptomatology, involvement
in problem behaviors (Wong et al., 2003), and academic
orientaon and achievement and healthy outcomes
(Neble et al., 2006). By not aending to the specic
needs and assets of racial and ethnic minority children,
especially Black children who have historically been
disenfranchised from equitable access to educaon,
we will connue to see disparies in their experiences
and outcomes (i.e., disproporonate expulsion and
suspension, low expectaons, and conictual teacher-
child relaonships) (Iruka et al., 2020; Meek et al.,
2020).
Identy is the “integraon of self-concept and self-
esteem with the percepons of future development
and includes an awareness of group membership,
expectaons, social responsibilies, and privileges
according to group membership. Ethnic-racial identy
[includes] atudes and beliefs an individual holds about
[their] parcular racial or ethnic group” (Thomas &
Speight, 1999, pp. 152-153). To unpack the meaning of
these two concepts, can be described
as the eect of an individual’s social and polical
experiences on their psychological well-being based on
their group membership's physical characteriscs. At
the same me, focuses on an individual’s
psychological connecon with members of a shared
cultural heritage, including a parcular worldview,
language, and behavioral dynamic (McMahon & Was,
2002). Together we refer to these concepts as ethnic-
racial identy.
4
ETHNIC-RACIAL IDENTITY FORMATION IN THE EARLY YEARS
To understand identy formaon, it is essenal to
disnguish between race versus ethnicity. While there
is an overlap between race and ethnicity, they are
dierent constructs. Race is a social construct primarily
based on skin color, hair texture, and other physical
aributes. It is a societal social structure engineered
to communicate who has power and who does not,
and race is used to distort views of groups, such as
seeing groups as threatening, lazy, etc, and it is also
uses to jusfy oppression (Markus, 2008). There is no
biological underpinning for race, yet it operates via
societally created noons of dierence and superiority.
Similarly, there is no biological basis for , but
it is based on “a framework for acquiring a view of the
self, the world, and future opportunies, while also
providing a structure for interpersonal relaons and
subjecve experiences” (Spencer & Markstrom-Adams,
1990, p. 292) such as a shared language, religious
heritage, or geographic locaon. Members of ethnic
groups may dier by race, such as Lanes who have a
shared language of Spanish, naonal heritage, or shared
ancestry. But ethnicity may also be used to describe a
sense of belonging among members of dierent racial
groups, such as Blacks or those who are mulracial.
Phinney and Ong (2007) indicated a sense of belonging
as a crical component of ethnic identy, implicang
that as individuals from ethnically marginalized groups
associate posive feelings with their group membership,
they will also hold posive beliefs and atudes about
themselves as a group member. When a healthy
identy has been formed, members of racial and ethnic
groups are proud and feel a sense of belonging and
are movated to be a part of their racial-ethnic group
(Markus, 2008).
All children go through the process of identy formaon
in general. However, children of color are confronted with
developing an addional identy rooted in their group
membership and based in their group’s experiences
with racism, prejudice, and biases. The development of
this aspect of children of color’s identy is shaped by
their racial and ethnic idencaon, racial and ethnic
preference, racial and ethnic atudes, and reference
group orientaon (Spencer & Markstrom-Adams, 1990).
is the ability to idenfy
oneself as part of a racial or ethnic group. Racial and
ethnic preference is an indicaon of having a posive
feeling about one’s racial and ethnic group. Racial and
is how a parcular racial or ethnic group
is viewed in society, such as the ability to know and
understand stereotypes. is
an indicaon of how racially or ethnically diverse children
determine their identy in relaon to their ethnic-racial
group.
Evidence shows that children’s racial awareness and
identy begin in the early childhood years. The literature
is clear that very young children are processing race
and racial dierences as early as three months. In
one study, Kelly et al. (2005) found that three-month-
old white infants living in the United Kingdom shown
smuli of faces from dierent racial and ethnic groups
demonstrated a preference for faces from their own
racial and ethnic group based on eye movement. Further
research indicates that between three and nine months,
infants become familiar with ethnic-racial smuli through
the process of perceptual narrowing (Williams et al.,
2020). During this developmental period, children begin
to develop preferences for racial and ethnic groups
familiar to them. Work by Metzo (2006) also shows
that while infants may not have full language, they are
able to interpret and aempt to mimic adult behaviors
whether directed at them or not. This indicates that
children’s percepons about themselves, others, and
the environment are inuenced long before children
have language. While there is a need for more studies
showing how early children can disnguish racial and
ethnic dierences, evidence is clear that by the age of
two, children can use racial categories to reason about
others and their behaviors (Hirschfeld, 2008). By three to
four years of age, children can categorize people based
on the color of their skin, such as brown or pink-colored
skin, and this is aligned with Swanson et al.’s (2009) study
that found that racial identy in childhood goes through
age-related progression beginning with knowledge of
color categories and culminang with the awareness of
racial categories. By ve to six years of age, children can
accurately label people by socially constructed racial
categories, like Black and white. This is when children
associate posive aributes with white and negave
aributes with Black, leading to a pro-white bias in ethnic-
racial socializaon (Spencer & Markstrom-Adams, 1990).
During these early years, race begins to aect children’s
behavior and how they see themselves. For example,
by the age of ve, children are likely to succumb to
5
ETHNIC-RACIAL IDENTITY FORMATION IN THE EARLY YEARS
stereotype threat (Ambady et al., 2001). Stereotype
threat is a cognive process where a person’s
performance on standardized tasks is diminished when
primed with a stereotype about their group (e.g., Black
students are not smart, boys do beer in math). In a
study with Asian American children, Ambady et al. (2001)
found that elementary school children (kindergarten to
grade two) showed a change in their performance on a
standardized measure when primed with negave and
posive stereotypes. Thus, it is clear that by the me
children enter formal schooling, the internalizaon of
their racial identy, and the stereotypes that go along
with it, have an impact on their achievement and
social-emoonal development. However, it is essenal
to note that while children may be able to make social
aribuons based on skin color, it does not necessarily
mean that they have poor self-concept and self-hatred.
For example, Beale Spencer (1982) showed that children
could simultaneously have a Eurocentric preference and
have a high self-concept about being Black. However,
this Eurocentric preference for all children changed as
children got older, around age nine, and it diverged to
the extent that Black children began to display Black
preference. In contrast, their white peers’ preference
remained Eurocentric. Black children’s preference for
their own racial group connued to grow with age (Smith
et al., 2009). In fact, Black children were more likely to
report experiencing racial pride than white children or
mixed-race children; 58 percent of them were likely to
answer in response to quesons about what is racial
pride, and made statements such as, “I think it means
I’m proud to be Black. I like who I am” (Black boy, grade
four), compared to only 29 percent of mixed-race and 13
percent of white children (Rogers & Meltzo, 2017, pp.
328). Even though racially marginalized children show
skills in identy formaon, the understanding of skin color
disncon and the ability to idenfy as a member of a
racial or ethnic group is a mul-stage process that occurs
across several years, as several racial or ethnic identy
formaon models arculate. For example, Cross Jr (1995)
developed a ve-stage identy formaon model of racial
identy for Black people based on his work with children
and adolescents. The ve stages are pre-encounter,
encounter, immersion, internalizaon, and polical
acvity.
01. Pre-encounter: Individual’s identity may not be a
salient part of their identity, or they may be anti-Black
or pro-white.
02. Encounter: This is the stage when individuals
experience an event or receive a stimulus that causes
them to challenge their beliefs about their identity
or make them aware of their identity (e.g., called a
racial slur, excluded from events or opportunities due
to race). Individuals will likely experience confusion,
alarm, depression, and eventually guilt, anger, and
anxiety (Thomas & Speight, 1999).
03. Immersion: Individuals immerse themselves in the
Afrocentric culture, including the values, beliefs,
traditions, language, and activities. Individuals are
likely to feel anger during this stage.
04. Internalization/Commitment: This is the stage when
individuals have internalized their racial identity
with their self-concept. This means that individuals
primarily view themselves and their experiences
through their racial and cultural identity.
05. Political activity: The final stage is the active behavior
of ending all people's oppression primarily through
political action.
Beyond racial identy, ethnic identy has also been
examined. In 1987, Aboud (1987) and Rotheram and
Phinney (1987) idened the components of ethnic
identy; this was updated by Bernal and colleagues
(1990). The ve components of ethnic identy include:
ĤEthnic self-identification: This is the ability to
categorize one as a member of an ethnic group
and recognizing appropriate cues.
ĤEthnic constancy: This is the knowledge that one’s
ethnic characteristics are permanent across time
and settings.
ĤUse of ethnic role behaviors: This is engaging in
behaviors that reflect the culture, styles, and
customs of the ethnic group.
ĤEthnic knowledge: This is the knowledge that
certain behaviors, customs, traits, and behaviors
are meaningful for one’s ethnic group.
ĤEthnic preferences and feelings: This is the
feeling and preference about being a member
of an ethnic group, and also a preference for
one’s ethnic-racial groups’ behaviors, customs,
language, and values.
While the literature on ethnic identy is sll limited,
there is agreement that children can classify themselves
and others based on ethnic identy. It is thought that
6
ETHNIC-RACIAL IDENTITY FORMATION IN THE EARLY YEARS
ethnic identy may occur later compared to racial
identy because the social markers may be more
ambiguous. It may be easier for young children to
categorize by race because this is generally categorized
based on skin color and other physical features like hair
type and texture. The ve ethnic identy components
described by Bernal and colleagues seem to occur at
dierent developmental stages. Serrano-Villar and
Calzada (2016) indicate that “From the preschool
(four- to ve-year-old) to school-aged (six- to 10-year-
old) years, self-idencaon shied from an ‘empty’
label (i.e., that is parroted) to a ‘meaningful’ one (i.e.,
that reects an understanding of why an individual
is [Mexican American]), and the other components
shied from simple imitaon of what family members
were doing to more complex, individualized knowledge,
behaviors and feelings/preferences” (pp. 3-4). They sll
found that about half of preschoolers were found to self-
idenfy.
THE STATE OF EVIDENCE ABOUT
FORMATION
We briey present the current evidence about the links
between ethnic-racial identy on various child outcomes
and factors shown to support ethnic-racial identy.
Numerous studies nd mulple links between
racial identy and children and youth’s prosocial
development. Rivas-Drake and colleagues (2014)
provide a comprehensive review of the eects of
ethnic–racial identy on developmental outcomes in
ve main dimensions for African American, Lane, Asian
American, Pacic Islander, and Nave American youth.
The ve dimensions are (a) exploraon, (b) resoluon,
(c) centrality, (d) posive aect, and (e) public regard.
Exploraon dimension is related to children seeking
out more informaon, “including media consumpon
related to the history and cultural norms of their group,
as well as seeking membership in same-race collecves
that increase exposure to and experiences with group
norms and beliefs” (Huguley et al., 2019, p. 440).
Rivas-Drake et al. (2014) nd this dimension is related
to posive self-esteem, more interest in learning, and
fewer depressive symptoms. Resoluon is when youth
have made meaning of their racial identy and claried
what their identy means to them, which is associated
with more interest in learning. Centrality is focused on
how much group members are important to the youth’s
self-concept. This is linked to their prosocial behavior,
high academic movaon, and peer acceptance and
popularity. Posive aect is the youth’s evaluaon of
armaon and pride about their membership and a
sense of belonging. This is found to be associated with
posive self-esteem, prosocial behavior, and fewer
depressive symptoms. This dimension is also linked to
posive academic engagement and achievement and
greater school success and connectedness. Finally,
public regard is the percepon of others’ evaluaon
of a youth’s group, which is linked to youth’s fewer
somac symptoms, greater school belonging, academic
competence, and higher grades.
In sum, Rivas-Drake and colleagues (2014) found ethnic-
racial identy was consistently and posively associated
with psychosocial funconing and mental health,
and this is especially true for youths’ posive feelings
about their ethnic or racial group (e.g., armaon,
private regard) and Black and Lane youth psychosocial
adjustment. Ethnic-racial identy was also associated
with academic outcomes for Black, Lane, and Asian
American youth to some extent. There were less
consistent ndings for Nave American youth.
While most studies linking ethnic-racial identy focus
on older-age children and youth, evidence shows that
parental ethnic-racial identy has posive links to
young children’s early skills and outcomes and social-
emoonal development. For example, in their study
using a sample of 193 Black mother-child dyads enrolled
in an Early Head Start (EHS) program, Halgunseth
et al. (2005) found maternal racial identy atudes
related to children’s cognive achievement and social
competence. Children of mothers who internalized
Black-centered values (i.e., values that upli Black
people) had stronger social competence, indicang
that the more mothers internalized a posive racial
identy, the likely it supported children’s sense of self.
Counter to expectaons, children with mothers in the
pre-encounter stage (i.e., endorse white mainstream
atudes) had stronger cognive outcomes. The authors
speculate such a nding may indicate that mothers who
were at the pre-encounter stage felt it was important to
align to society’s expectaons and engaged in behaviors
7
ETHNIC-RACIAL IDENTITY FORMATION IN THE EARLY YEARS
aligned with and ensured success in white culture. In
another study, Smith et al. (2009) examined the link
between ethnic-racial identy and 713 Black elementary
students' achievement and behavior. In addion to
nding that own-group racial preferences increased with
age, they found that ethnic-racial identy is posively
related to children’s social acceptance, physical
appearance, and behavioral conduct; and posive
ethnic-racial identy is posively predicve of children’s
reading and listening comprehension above and beyond
socio-demographics (e.g., age, educaon, income) and
self-esteem.
Various factors have been found to support young
children’s racial identy formaon and posive
racial identy. McAdoo’s (2002) foundaonal study
with preschool children showed that parents are
crical primary agents for ethnic-racial identy
formaon. Specically, parents’ teaching about racial
history and strategies for addressing discriminaon
were instrumental in children’s racial atudes
and preferences. These pracces are called racial
, and they are necessary to develop posive
racial identy and migate the psychological harm
from connuous negave messages about one’s race
(Hughes, 2003; Murry et al., 2001). Beyond the family
and home, schools and communies also socialize
and contribute to children’s racial identy formaon.
Based on 98 fourth-grade Black children, Smith et al.
(2003) found that children whose teachers exhibited
higher levels of ethnic-racial trust and perceived fewer
barriers due to race and ethnicity evidenced more
trust and opmism. Children living in communies
with higher proporons of college-educated residents
also exhibited more posive ethnic-racial atudes. An
examinaon of racial socializaon pracces and their
eects among 241 African American rst graders found
that neighborhood quality also maers for children’s
ethnic-racial identy (Caughy et al., 2006). Specically,
the greater the social capital of the neighborhood, the
stronger children’s racial pride, but on the contrary,
disadvantaged neighborhoods were associated with
greater feelings of racial mistrust and greater emphasis
on preparing for racial bias. Addionally, Caughy and
colleagues found that all racial socializaon messages
are not created equal, such that racial socializaon
pracces that communicated being mistrusul of whites
were associated with externalizing behavior problems in
boys and internalizing behavior problems in girls.
In their lifespan model of ethnic-racial identy, Williams
et al. (2020) nd various inuencers of children’s
identy formaon in the early years. In early childhood,
parents and families serve as the primary agent where
children learn about their culture and are prepared for
racialized experiences, including messages about pride
and mistrust. These experiences could also vary based
on families' socio-economic status and community and
children’s characteriscs such as their age, gender, and
skin tone. Other contexts that can also impact children’s
ethnic-racial identy include contexts such as their early
care and educaon seng and educators and other
adults in this seng. In contrast, in middle childhood,
children have a more concrete understanding of their
ethnic and racial identy and engage in more behaviors
that align with their ethnic-racial identy. Beyond the
home and family, during this period, children are more
inuenced by their current context, peers, and the
school community, including same-race friends and
more media exposure and other social life, such as
extracurricular acvies. Thus, as children’s contexts
expand beyond their home and family, the inuencers of
their ethnic-racial identy also broaden.
While there sll remains a dearth of study on ethnic-
racial identy formaon for many groups of children
including Nave American, Lane, Asian American/
Pacic Islander, and Black children across the diaspora
(e.g., Afro-Lanes, Carribean-Americans), there is
emerging work examining the ethnic-racial identy of
mulracial and transracially adopted children based
on their genecs, percepon by majority society, and
internal feeling of racial identy (e.g., Ung et al., 2012).
Nishina and Witkow (2020) describe all the nuances
of mulracial children’s identy development and
why child development researchers should care about
the ethnic-racial identy of these children and why it
is important to include these children in studies that
focus on identy development. While we agree with
their suggeson that mulracial children should be
considered as their own ethnic group, we recognize
there are limitaons in terms of how the results of
their developmental trajectories might be able to
be understood given the vast heterogeneity among
the children, their family conguraons, and their
8
ETHNIC-RACIAL IDENTITY FORMATION IN THE EARLY YEARS
interacons with the communies that form their
identy. Therefore, for studies, and even perhaps for
demographic purposes, lumping mulracial children
together ignores the diversity that exists within this
group and the ways in which mulracial children’s
identy could vary depending on how they themselves
idenfy, how others see them, and the quanty and
quality of social interacons they have with members
of their ethnic groups. Nishina and Witkow’s conceptual
piece presents the eld with lots to consider, and
in-depth work on mulracial children’s identy
development is just beginning. Thus, there is a need
to aend to the mul-dimensionality and complexity
of mulracial ethnic-racial identy, especially when
considering that such identy intersects with other
factors such as phenotype, gender, and community
connecon.
In light of the emerging importance of ethnic-racial
identy for young children’s social and academic
competence, there is a need to examine programs found
to, directly and indirectly, promote and support this
aspect of children’s development. We review several
programs purporng to directly or indirectly support
children’s ethnic-racial identy (see Table 1). This is not
an exhausve list but a list to show the nature of the
programming, target age, and sengs.
9
ETHNIC-RACIAL IDENTITY FORMATION IN THE EARLY YEARS
ORGANIZATION ESTABLISHED NATURE OF PROGRAMS TARGET AGE PARTICIPANTS
Advancing Racial
and Ethnic Equity
in Head Start
n.d.
Webinar series aims to promote anti-bias
and anti-racism strategies Head Start and
Early Head Start programs can use in their
practices, services, and systems; includes
children’s understanding of race and identity
development.
Infants,
toddlers, and
preschoolers
Head Start and Early Head
Start staff
Abriendo Puertas,
Opening Doors 2007
Ten-session curriculum for parents delivered by
local partners promotes practices that foster
children’s learning and development, parent
leadership, and advocacy.
Preschool-aged
children Parents
Children’s
Instute 1906
Early education, behavioral health, and family
strengthening services. Training for professionals
and caregivers in trauma-informed care,
evidence-based clinical treatment, parenting,
and fatherhood, including training staff to
confront their own experiences with racism.
Early childhood,
school-age
children, and
teenagers
Children, caregivers, and
teachers
Center on
Culture, Race &
Equity at Bank
Street College of
Educaon’s Black
Lives Maer at
School
2016
Annual weekly symposium designed to promote
dialogue, curricula, and community events that
explore racism in educational environments and
the policies and curriculum that promote equity
for Black children and community events such as
National Youth Day.
Early childhood Educators, students, parents,
families, community members
EmbraceRace 2016
Community and resources including articles,
webinars, action guides, children’s books,
resources, and stories to support those raising
and guiding children to be inclusive, informed,
and brave when it comes to race.
Preschool and
elementary-
aged children
Caregivers and early childhood
educators
Naonal
Black Child
Development
Instute
1970
Strengths-based culturally relevant, evidence-
based, and trauma-informed resources,
programs, and events, including grassroots
effor ts at the local level through their National
Affiliate Network. Examples of resources include
direct distribution of culturally relevant and
developmentally appropriate children’s books
and supplemental materials. Programs and
events include an Annual Conference, programs
across the country focused on health and
wellness, literacy, and family engagement.
Birth to age
eight
Leaders, policymakers,
professionals, and parents
P.R.I.D.E.: Posive
Racial Identy
Development in
Early Educaon
2017
For teachers: speaker series, cohor t program
with monthly sessions. For parents: Parent
Village program with weekly meetings. For
teachers & parents: Pop up mini art festivals
with affirming art ac tivities. Other: fee-for-
service PD.
Three to eight
years old
Primarily teachers
and caregivers, with
opportunities for child and
family involvement and PD
opportunities at institutions
such as museums and libraries
Table 1
10
ETHNIC-RACIAL IDENTITY FORMATION IN THE EARLY YEARS
Two measures – Doll Test (Clark & Clark, 1947) and the
Preschool Racial Atude Measure (Williams et al., 1975)
are two of the premier measures to measure ethnic-racial
atude and identy in early childhood. However, there
is concern that forced-choice methods may not indicate
the child’s true racial atude (Jensen & Tisak, 2020). The
Mul-Response Racial Atude measure (MRA; Doyle &
Aboud, 1995) allows children to aribute posive and
negave adjecves to more than one photo, thereby
overcoming previous studies' main aws. The MRA
consists of the following tasks and smuli: 10 posive and
10 negave adjecves. These adjecves are represented
on index cards. For example, "naughty" was depicted by
three cards showing a room with crayons on the oor
and crayon scribbles on one wall. The child is then asked
to sort the photos into separate boxes. A photo depicng
a specic racial group (white, Black, and Indigenous) is
posted outside the box. The researcher states, "Some
children are naughty. They oen do things like drawing on
the wall with crayons. Who is naughty?’’
Ethnic-Racial Preference. Only a few measures have been
used to assess children’s ethnic-racial identy during the
early years. One is the Racial Atudes Beliefs Scale-II
(RABS-II) developed by Spencer (1996). The RABS-II was
designed for K-2nd graders and used a pictorial projecve
technique to determine children’s racial preference.
Children are shown two gendered (boy/girl) sets of
photographs of children from various ethnic-racial groups
(African American, Lane, white, and Asian). For each set
of pictures, children were asked: (a) with whom would
you rather be friends, (b) who do you think is smarter, (c)
who do you think is meaner, and (d) who do you think is
beer looking? The measure is then scored for own-group
preference (α = .71), which reects how oen the child
chose a photograph of a child that matched their ethnic-
racial identy, versus other-group preference (alpha =
.73), which reects how oen a child chose a picture that
did not match their ethnic-racial identy. There is also an
overall preference that ranges from -3 to 9 and reects the
frequency of preference for their own group for posive
items versus negave quesons (α = .75)
In third grade, children are
competent in answering quesons based on a Likert
scale, so the Mulgroup Ethnic Identy Measure (MEIM;
Phinney, 1992) can be used. Examples of items are, “I am
happy that I am a member of the group I belong to,” and
“I feel a strong aachment toward my own ethnic group.”
Responses are scaled from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5
(strongly agree); α = .74.
Gaps in evidence regarding ethnic-racial
While there is growing literature on ethnic-racial identy
formaon, there are sll gaps in this area, especially in
early childhood. There is a need for in-depth examinaon
about the stages of ethnic-racial identy formaon in
the rst few years of life, and to what extent this may
dier across racial and ethnic groups, especially for Asian
Americans, Nave Americans, as well as members of the
African diaspora (e.g., African American, Afro-Caribbean
and African children). One area of research that needs
to be studied more in terms of ethnic-racial identy is
examining biracial and mulracial children’s identy
development, especially for those whose biracial identy
comprises two racially marginalized groups, such as
Afro-Lane children. For instance, qualitave research
by Casllo and colleagues (2020) has shown that youth
with a Black-Asian ethnic-racial identy report racial
identy conict across their two communies, such as
being alienated by the Asian community or having their
ethnic-racial identy validity quesoned within the Black
community. Also, Black-Asian female youth reported
being hypersexualized due to their biracial identy.
Beyond children who are members of marginalized
groups, there is a need to understand the process
and factors that impact white children’s racial identy
formaon, or at the minimum, recognion of their
identy in relaon to children of color.
There is also a need to examine whether there are
dierences based on children’s individual characteriscs
such as age, gender, size, and phenotype (skin color, hair
texture), family characteriscs, such as income level,
family structure, language, and parental educaon,
and community characteriscs, such as urban or rural
environment, the proporon of ethnically and racially
diverse community members, among other factors. With
many young children in out-of-home care and exposed to
media, there is a need for more studies examining how
these non-familial contexts may be inuencing the growth
of children’s ethnic-racial identy.
There is some indicaon that children as young as nine
months prefer faces from their own racial and ethnic
group, but this study was done in another country
11
ETHNIC-RACIAL IDENTITY FORMATION IN THE EARLY YEARS
with white children (Kelly et al., 2005). There is a need
for studies focused on very young children in the US
and other racial and ethnic groups. Furthermore,
studies asking children to label dolls show that young
children place posive aributes on white dolls and
negave atudes on Black/Brown dolls. However,
there is debate as to whether this indicates children’s
negave internalizaon or just categorizaon based on
environmental and social cues. For example, Gopaul-
McNicol (1995) interpreted Black West Indian children’s
preference for a white versus Black Cabbage Patch doll
to be an indicator of internalized oppression due to
colonialism. Thus, there is more to be done about the
development of children’s ethnic-racial identy, how
we assess their racial-ethnic identy, and factors across
children’s environment that strengthen posive racial
identy, and what this may mean for children's social,
emoonal, and academic skills.
RECOMMENDATIONS FOR AN
The literature on ethnic-racial identy formaon shows
the importance of children’s development and school
and life success. It also shows that many factors can
strengthen (or detract) from children’s posive ethnic-
racial identy. While there are emerging science-based
programs that directly and indirectly support children’s
ethnic-racial identy, there is no rigorously validated
approach for examining or measuring it. As the early
years are viewed as a sensive period for children’s
development and learning, and the understanding that
children’s identy is an essenal aspect of children's
social-emoonal and cognive competence, early care
and educaon programs and systems must begin to
consider this as an area of importance for children’s
development. There has been an intenonal focus on
children’s language, cognive, and social-emoonal
development, but primarily centered on white
normave standards. In light of the call to beer meet
children of color's needs and support their holisc
development, a focus on their ethnic-racial identy
formaon is one crical area needing aenon. Thus,
we recommend a cohensive scholarly infrastructure
to ensure research is aligned with pracce and policy
to translate the science to support children’s ethnic-
racial identy. One suggested approach to create an
acon-oriented infrastructure is the development of
an
.
This Research-Pracce Partnership will review this white
paper along with the other relevant documents (e.g., The
Hunt Instute’s Racial Identy Formaon nal report)
to develop a plan to holiscally examine, address, and
recommend how the science of ethnic-racial identy
formaon can be strengthened in the early years and
how ethnic-racial identy formaon can be strengthened
within early care and educaon systems and programs.
This group will be charged with developing and
a plan that includes the following:
01. furthering the field’s understanding of positive
ethnic-racial identity, including stages of
development and factors that impact and support it,
with an emphasis on children of color;
02. examining how early care and education settings
and systems can promote positive ethnic-racial
identity, especially for children of color, as part of
chidlren’s development and to support children’s
school and life success;
03. conceptualizing early childhood professional
development education and training to provide
the workforce with the skills they need to support
children’s positive SEL related to ethnic-racial
identity;
04. conducting a comprehensive review of
measurements and assessment of young children’s
ethnic-racial identity formation, and attend to
the source (parent, child, educator, rater) and
level of information (e.g., child-level, classroom
level, or program level), again with the focus on
organizational environments that can be improved;
05. prioritizing measurement development and indicator
selection to support inclusion in national, state,
and local early childhood classroom environmental
indicators and programming standards and
outcomes;
12
ETHNIC-RACIAL IDENTITY FORMATION IN THE EARLY YEARS
06. conducting a comprehensive review of programs
intending to strengthen children’s ethnic-racial
identity formation and from this review, provide
lessons for new program development, especially
for children of color;
07. prioritizing funding for additional studies needed
about how to integrate identified programs into
current early care and education systems and
infrastructure; and
08. developing an extensive communication and
dissemination plan with diverse stakeholders
across the early childhood field to communicate
the importance of ethnic-racial identity for
children’s development and school and life skills
and the importance of parent, family, schools, and
community partnerships (e.g., parents, educators,
education leaders, administrators, community
leaders) to support positive ethnic-racial identity,
with an emphasis on children of color.
13
ETHNIC-RACIAL IDENTITY FORMATION IN THE EARLY YEARS
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