Growing Up, Learning Race: An Integration of Research on Cognitive Mechanisms and Socialization in Context

Abstract

In the United States, race is a critical factor in determining how children experience and navigate their social worlds. Developmental scientists have examined the complexities and nuances of how children develop an understanding of what race means for them and others as well as their attitudes toward people of other racial groups. We provide an overview of the literature on two approaches to understanding children's racial learning—sociocognitive approaches, which focus on various aspects of children's understanding of, beliefs about, and attitudes toward race and racial groups, and socialization perspectives, which examine the messages that socialization agents transmit to children about race. Throughout, we highlight the ways in which the persistence of structural and interpersonal racism in the United States forms the background context for children's racial learning.