Racial/Ethnic Identity of Preschool Children

Abstract

Preschool children from four racial/ethnic groupings in three different sociocultural settings were compared on racial/ethnic identity with a picture interview. One of the settings, Taiwan, was relatively homogeneous in racial/ ethnic makeup; another, Hong Kong, nonstratified; the third, the United States, stratified. In Taiwan and Hong Kong the subjects were Chinese; in the United States they were Afro- and Euro-American. The major hypothesis was supported, for the Taiwan and Hong Kong children differed from the Afro- and Euro-American on racial/ethnic preference, self-preference, and self-perception; from Euro-American on classification ability; and from Afro-American on self-classification. It was concluded that a crucial factor in the development of racial/ ethnic identity was not so much whether the society was multiracial/ethnic or homogeneous, but whether racial/ethnic groupings in the multi-racial/ethnic society were stratified.