The Social Construction of Racial and Ethnic Groups [WLOs 2, 4] [.docx

The Social Construction of Racial and Ethnic Groups [WLOs: 2,
4] [CLOs: 1, 2, 3, 5]
Prior to beginning work on this discussion, read Chapters 1 and
2 from your textbook and review the following resources:
· The Story of Race: A History (Links to an external site.)
· RACE – The Power of an Illusion (Links to an external site.)
· To Bring a Divided Country Together, Start With a Little
Spit (Links to an external site.)
· Race ≠ DNA: If Race is a Social Construct, What's Up With
DNA Ancestry Testing? (Links to an external site.)
This discussion will help you think about race and ethnicity as
socially constructed concepts. Rather than being rooted in any
major biological differences, race and ethnicity are systems of
thought and human behavior constructed within specific social
contexts. Therefore, race and ethnicity are not directly based on
nature or biology but instead result from social ideas and
practices. In other words, racial and ethnic categories exist
because people believe they are real and important.
Furthermore, certain groups have historically decided who
belongs to a given racial group, as well as the characteristics
and values attributed to these groups.
Today as home DNA tests are illuminating people’s genetic
diversity, long-held ideas about racial and ethnic groups are
being challenged. In your initial post, please address the
following:
· Watch the video The Story of Race: A History (Links to an
external site.) or review the web page RACE - The Power of an
Illusion (Links to an external site.). Explain the difference
between race and ethnicity. What do sociologists mean when
they say that race and ethnicity are socially constructed?
· During the Spanish colonization of the Americas, how was
race socially constructed? How did colonizers benefit from how
they constructed race?
· According to the article Race ≠ DNA: If Race is a Social

Construct, What's Up With DNA Ancestry Testing? (Links to an
external site.)what makes race a socially defined identity rather
than a biologically defined one? Does race matter if it is not a
biological concept? Provide an example to support your answer
of why race does or does not matter if it is not a biological
concept.
· Home genetic (DNA) testing has become a multibillion-dollar
industry and millions of people globally have taken these home
tests to uncover their genetic stories. According to the resources
you reviewed, how do DNA test results shape people’s
perceptions of race and ethnicity? Why are some people
resistant to their test results?
· According to the article To Bring a Divided Country Together,
Start With a Little Spit (Links to an external site.) how might
taking a home DNA test help bridge the deep racial and ethnic
divisions in our society? Explain why you agree or disagree
with this.
Your initial post should be at least 650 words in length. Support
your claims with examples from required material and/or other
scholarly resources and properly cite any references. Be sure to
review the list of recommended resources for additional
assistance.
To bring a divided country together, start with a little spit
Susan Svrluga
Students in Anita Foeman’s class at West Chester University
prepare samples for DNA testing. (Melissa Rudolph)
One said her dad cheered when she told him she has Zulu roots.
A girl with curly red hair said her family always gathers around
a Nativity scene on Christmas Eve and sings carols over the
baby Jesus, and this year, after learning that she’s 1 percent
Jewish, she said: “We’re going to sing the dreidel song!”
When a white student said that 1 percent of his ancestry was
African, two black students sitting next to him gave him a fist
bump and said: “Yes! Brother.”
‘I honestly thought of myself as simply American’: DNA testing

shocks college students
“Some people have never had a happy conversation about race,”
Foeman said. But in her class at West Chester University,
there’s laughter. Eagerness. And easy connections where there
might have been chasms. “Our differences are fascinating,” she
said.
At a time when tensions over race and politics are so raw, the
stakes, Foeman said, seem particularly high. Her students have
been talking all fall about riots, building walls, terrorist attacks,
immigration, the election. “You can feel it buzzing around the
halls like electricity,” Foeman said.
Asking people to take DNA tests — an idea that has spread to a
campuswide effort at this public university — grew out of
consulting work Foeman does in race mediation. Instead of a
confrontational approach, trying to provoke people into
recognizing their own biases, she wanted something that would
pull people together, or at least give them a neutral place from
which to start to talk. And with racial divides so stark, she
wanted to add some nuance and depth.
She wondered: What if people started finding out things they
didn’t know about themselves?
So she begins with a short survey asking people their race and
what they know about their ancestry. They spit into a vial.
Several weeks later, they get an email with an estimate of their
ethnic makeup, a color-coded map of their past.
That leads to questions, stories and curiosity. It is a welcome
reset from awkwardness, defensiveness, suspicion. Now that the
DNA tests are cheaper, Foeman is able to ask all the students in
her honors class — almost all of them freshmen just getting to
know or redefine themselves — to take the test.
There’s a broad range of people at this state school in
Pennsylvania: There are students whose parents are college
professors and those who are coal miners. There are students
from abroad, from inner cities, and from parts of the state so
rural that hunting helps put dinner on the table. There are
transgender students, students who reject gender entirely,

Bernie Sanders voters, Donald Trump voters, black people who
have heard racial slurs, a biracial student who was told by a
stranger last month to “go back to Mexico” and one who,
growing up in a neighborhood where most people are black, was
bullied because he is white. (“Who advocates for him?” Foeman
asked. “The election and the protests have pushed that
conversation forward.”)
Foeman, who is African American — and genetically more than
one-quarter European, as she now knows — would like to test as
many people as she can. It’s a way to study everything from
medicine to history. Most of all, she’d like to get everyone
talking.
She has found people willing, even eager, to take part, with
more than 1,500 on campus volunteering.
“I think people want this,” she said. “That surprises me — in a
good way.”
“When I opened my results, the first thing that greeted me was 6
percent African,” said a student with light skin in the back of
the classroom, smacking herself in the forehead, mouth open
wide, to recreate her reaction the night before: “Whaaaaat?”
“I guess I shouldn’t be that surprised,” she added. “I know a lot
of African American people have some white DNA, so I
shouldn’t be surprised there’s some African in me.”
Another student said when she called her parents to tell them
she was 75 percent Irish and 10 percent Scandinavian, “My
mom started cheering through the phone,” she said. “I was like,
‘Why are you cheering?'”
“It’s interesting the ones you cheer for and the ones you go,
‘Ehhhhhhh,'” Foeman said. “There are ones you lean into.”
That’s how family histories get told, and identities defined, she
says. Some things are exaggerated, some covered up, or
forgotten. “There are all kinds of secrets in families.”
A student with bright red hair sent her mother a screen shot of
her results, telling her: “‘We’re not Irish at all.’ Her first
response was: ‘You must have the wrong data.'”
And then: “‘Don’t tell your grandfather. It might kill him.'”

Foeman has seen people drop out of the project after getting
their results, including three people who identified as African
American who were upset to find out how much European
ancestry they had. Some people refuse to take the test. One
woman of Chinese descent told Foeman, “It’s okay for you —
you already know you’re mixed up. I don’t want to find out I’m
not pure.”
And some people resist some of the findings, like the student
who insisted he just tans easily.
Statistically, Foeman and her colleague Bessie Lawton have
found people overestimate their European heritage and
whiteness, and underestimate ancestry from other regions. Half
the people think their families will respond positively to results
before they take the test. Afterward, fewer than 1 in 10 think so.
“People don’t realize they think this stuff,” Foeman said. “They
would say they have no prejudices. They just get quiet.”
In class, there were a few quiet moments. But mostly people
were rushing to talk — to tell about the great-grandfather who
was a Portuguese pirate, the grandfather who was a Black
Panther, the grandmother who doesn’t like black people, the
great-grandmother whose skin is so very much lighter than her
siblings and everyone will be very angry if anyone asks why
that is. The grandmother who, on her deathbed at 99, insisted
that the family’s roots went back to William the Conqueror,
though no one thought the family was of British descent at all.
(That student’s test results indicated they were, in fact, British.
“Even up to the end, you gave Grandma no respect!” Foeman
teased.)
Emma Krentler, who has pale skin and brown hair, told the class
she knew of Italian and German ancestors and expected some
kind of a split between the two. Instead, she found a much more
intricate tapestry: 2 percent North African, 13 percent west
Asian, 2 percent Jewish. And when she saw “Middle Eastern —
I was like, ‘What? What?’ It was complete and utter surprise.”
“Who are these people?!” Foeman laughed with her.
Strummer Steele said the results indicated an Arab Jewish

identity and said in these times, neither of those is a safe thing
to point out: “There were swastikas painted in Philly
yesterday.”
After the election, Foeman said, “People on all sides are
smarting. How do we start to approach each other again?”
Several students said they thought genetic testing could
help. Amari Gilmore, who is African American, mentioned the
historical labeling of people as black if they had even one black
ancestor. Cassandra Carabello, who identifies as Hispanic, said
her results indicated she was almost one-fifth African. “That
would change everything,” she said. “Black lives matter?”
“If everyone had the opportunity to take this test, it would just
bring us closer together,” Carabello said. “I’m 7 percent Irish.
Now I feel connected to that in some way.” She’s 41 percent
Native American. For every race, she now feels, viscerally, “We
have something in common.”
Lawton said the results show what researchers already know,
that people are 99.9 percent the same in terms of DNA. “The
only part that makes us look different is 0.1 percent,” she said.
James Devor, who voted for Trump, said people talk about
politics in class in ways they don’t elsewhere on campus. One
student told the class about how she started to tell a group of
friends she’s Republican and they walked away, furious with
her. The class listened. People talked about being scared about
deportations, and the class listened. A black student told how
she was saddened by results that evoked some of the horrors of
slavery, and the class listened.
The DNA test “helps us understand we’re not all from one
special place, which is really peculiar to America,” Devor said.
“Because we’re all from different areas, with different ideas
that come with that ethnic culture. What makes America great is
we have all those cultures combined.”
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To bring a divided country together, start with a little spit
Students in Anita Foeman’s class at West Chester University
prepare samples for DNA testing. (Melissa Rudolph)
By
Susan Svrluga
Reporter
Dec. 24, 2016 at 2:26 p.m. EST
Anita Foeman’s students had just gotten the results from their
genetic tests, and they couldn’t wait to talk.
One said her dad cheered when she told him she has Zulu roots.
A girl with curly red hair said her family always gathers around
a Nativity scene on Christmas Eve and sings carols over the
baby Jesus, and this year, after learning that she’s 1 percent
Jewish, she said: “We’re going to sing the dreidel song!”
When a white student said that 1 percent of his ancestry was
African, two black students sitting next to him gave him a fist
bump and said: “Yes! Brother.”
‘I honestly thought of myself as simply American’: DNA testing
shocks college students
“Some people have never had a happy conversation about race,”
Foeman said. But in her class at West Chester University,
there’s laughter. Eagerness. And easy connections where there
might have been chasms. “Our differences are fascinating,” she
said.
AD
At a time when tensions over race and politics are so raw, the
stakes, Foeman said, seem particularly high. Her students have
been talking all fall about riots, building walls, terrorist attacks,
immigration, the election. “You can feel it buzzing around the
halls like electricity,” Foeman said.
Asking people to take DNA tests — an idea that has spread to a

campuswide effort at this public university — grew out of
consulting work Foeman does in race mediation. Instead of a
confrontational approach, trying to provoke people into
recognizing their own biases, she wanted something that would
pull people together, or at least give them a neutral place from
which to start to talk. And with racial divides so stark, she
wanted to add some nuance and depth.
She wondered: What if people started finding out things they
didn’t know about themselves?
AD
So she begins with a short survey asking people their race and
what they know about their ancestry. They spit into a vial.
Several weeks later, they get an email with an estimate of their
ethnic makeup, a color-coded map of their past.
That leads to questions, stories and curiosity. It is a welcome
reset from awkwardness, defensiveness, suspicion. Now that the
DNA tests are cheaper, Foeman is able to ask all the students in
her honors class — almost all of them freshmen just getting to
know or redefine themselves — to take the test.
How DNA testing for your ancestry works
University of British Columbia professor Wendy Roth explains
genetic ancestry tests and how these tests influence how people
understand race. (YouTube/Peter Wall Institute for Advanced
Studies)
There’s a broad range of people at this state school in
Pennsylvania: There are students whose parents are college
professors and those who are coal miners. There are students
from abroad, from inner cities, and from parts of the state so
rural that hunting helps put dinner on the table. There are
transgender students, students who reject gender entirely,
Bernie Sanders voters, Donald Trump voters, black people who
have heard racial slurs, a biracial student who was told by a
stranger last month to “go back to Mexico” and one who,
growing up in a neighborhood where most people are black, was
bullied because he is white. (“Who advocates for him?” Foeman
asked. “The election and the protests have pushed that

conversation forward.”)
AD
Foeman, who is African American — and genetically more than
one-quarter European, as she now knows — would like to test as
many people as she can. It’s a way to study everything from
medicine to history. Most of all, she’d like to get everyone
talking.
She has found people willing, even eager, to take part, with
more than 1,500 on campus volunteering.
“I think people want this,” she said. “That surprises me — in a
good way.”
Anita Foeman explains to her class at West Chester University
just how much saliva is needed for a DNA test. (Melissa
Rudolph)
“When I opened my results, the first thing that greeted me was 6
percent African,” said a student with light skin in the back of
the classroom, smacking herself in the forehead, mouth open
wide, to recreate her reaction the night before: “Whaaaaat?”
AD
“I guess I shouldn’t be that surprised,” she added. “I know a lot
of African American people have some white DNA, so I
shouldn’t be surprised there’s some African in me.”
Another student said when she called her parents to tell them
she was 75 percent Irish and 10 percent Scandinavian, “My
mom started cheering through the phone,” she said. “I was like,
‘Why are you cheering?'”
“It’s interesting the ones you cheer for and the ones you go,
‘Ehhhhhhh,'” Foeman said. “There are ones you lean into.”
That’s how family histories get told, and identities defined, she
says. Some things are exaggerated, some covered up, or
forgotten. “There are all kinds of secrets in families.”
AD
A student with bright red hair sent her mother a screen shot of
her results, telling her: “‘We’re not Irish at all.’ Her first
response was: ‘You must have the wrong data.'”
And then: “‘Don’t tell your grandfather. It might kill him.'”

Foeman has seen people drop out of the project after getting
their results, including three people who identified as African
American who were upset to find out how much European
ancestry they had. Some people refuse to take the test. One
woman of Chinese descent told Foeman, “It’s okay for you —
you already know you’re mixed up. I don’t want to find out I’m
not pure.”
And some people resist some of the findings, like the student
who insisted he just tans easily.
AD
Statistically, Foeman and her colleague Bessie Lawton have
found people overestimate their European heritage and
whiteness, and underestimate ancestry from other regions. Half
the people think their families will respond positively to results
before they take the test. Afterward, fewer than 1 in 10 think so.
“People don’t realize they think this stuff,” Foeman said. “They
would say they have no prejudices. They just get quiet.”
In class, there were a few quiet moments. But mostly people
were rushing to talk — to tell about the great-grandfather who
was a Portuguese pirate, the grandfather who was a Black
Panther, the grandmother who doesn’t like black people, the
great-grandmother whose skin is so very much lighter than her
siblings and everyone will be very angry if anyone asks why
that is. The grandmother who, on her deathbed at 99, insisted
that the family’s roots went back to William the Conqueror,
though no one thought the family was of British descent at all.
(That student’s test results indicated they were, in fact, British.
“Even up to the end, you gave Grandma no respect!” Foeman
teased.)
AD
Emma Krentler, who has pale skin and brown hair, told the class
she knew of Italian and German ancestors and expected some
kind of a split between the two. Instead, she found a much more
intricate tapestry: 2 percent North African, 13 percent west
Asian, 2 percent Jewish. And when she saw “Middle Eastern —
I was like, ‘What? What?’ It was complete and utter surprise.”

“Who are these people?!” Foeman laughed with her.
West Chester University student Emma Krentler. (Melissa
Rudolph)
Strummer Steele said the results indicated an Arab Jewish
identity and said in these times, neither of those is a safe thing
to point out: “There were swastikas painted in Philly
yesterday.”
After the election, Foeman said, “People on all sides are
smarting. How do we start to approach each other again?”
AD
Several students said they thought genetic testing could
help. Amari Gilmore, who is African American, mentioned the
historical labeling of people as black if they had even one black
ancestor. Cassandra Carabello, who identifies as Hispanic, said
her results indicated she was almost one-fifth African. “That
would change everything,” she said. “Black lives matter?”
“If everyone had the opportunity to take this test, it would just
bring us closer together,” Carabello said. “I’m 7 percent Irish.
Now I feel connected to that in some way.” She’s 41 percent
Native American. For every race, she now feels, viscerally, “We
have something in common.”
Lawton said the results show what researchers already know,
that people are 99.9 percent the same in terms of DNA. “The
only part that makes us look different is 0.1 percent,” she said.
James Devor, who voted for Trump, said people talk about
politics in class in ways they don’t elsewhere on campus. One
student told the class about how she started to tell a group of
friends she’s Republican and they walked away, furious with
her. The class listened. People talked about being scared about
deportations, and the class listened. A black student told how
she was saddened by results that evoked some of the horrors of
slavery, and the class listened.
The DNA test “helps us understand we’re not all from one
special place, which is really peculiar to America,” Devor said.
“Because we’re all from different areas, with different ideas
that come with that ethnic culture. What makes America great is

we have all those cultures combined.”
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· Ad ChoicesRace ≠ DNAIf race is a social construct, what’s up
with DNA ancestry testing?
Biological race has been defined by combinations of physical
features, geographic ancestry, frequencies of genes (alleles) and
evolutionary lineages. Biological races exist within some
species. This is why we know they do not exist within our
species, modern humans.
Socially defined race has been defined by an arbitrarily
organized combination of physical traits, geographic ancestry,
language, religion and a variety of other cultural features.
Social definitions of race differ depending on context
and always operate in the service of social-dominance
hierarchies.
The modern consensus of evolutionary biologists is that our
species does not have enough genetic variability among its
populations to justify either the identification of geographically
based races or of evolutionarily distinct lineages. This is
because we are a relatively young species (150,000–200,000
years old) that has always maintained significant amounts of
gene flow between its major population centers (or regional
clusters of inhabitants). Indeed, all modern humans living today
are descended from people who once lived in East Africa. (The
oldest modern human fossils come from Omo Kibish in
Ethiopia.) Humans did not begin to populate the rest of the
world until about 60,000 years ago. Some of the first recorded

civilizations were located in Ethiopia (prior to 3,000 B.C.E.)
and then moved up the Blue Nile to modern-day Egypt. Thus
many of the biological traits not found in sub-Saharan Africans
are relatively new; fair skin and the blue-eye allele are—at
most—6,000 years old. Finally this also means that when most
people think of biological ancestry, they are really envisioning
recent ancestry relative to our species’ existence (within the last
50,000 years or so).
This is where our understanding often gets fouled up. How is it
possible that geographically based genetic and physical
variation can tell you something about an individual’s recent
biological ancestry, and yet that variation is not useful in
identifying an individual’s biological race? Isn’t it true that
Norwegians have fair complexions and Nigerians are dark?
It is true that all modern human populations have genetic
differences that reflect adaptation to the environments their
“recent” ancestors inhabited. There are also genetic changes
that resulted from simple chance events. Have you ever heard
the term “genetic drift”? This refers to chance events that alter
gene frequencies in populations. This happened when human
groups migrated out of Africa at different times and in different
directions. Members of a given group carried a unique subset of
all human genetic variation with them. For all these reasons,
there is no single physical trait or gene that can be used to
unambiguously assign people to racial groups. Here’s an
example: The sickle cell allele is found in high frequency
wherever malaria is found, including West Africa, the Arabian
Peninsula, the Mediterranean Basin and in India. It is not found
among Kenyans whose ancestry is from high-altitude regions of
that country. Therefore the sickle cell gene can’t be used to
define races.
Another relevant example is skin color. Skin color variation is
associated with solar intensity, and thus all populations with
tropical ancestry have darker skin than those whose recent
ancestry is from the temperate and arctic zones. Solomon
Islanders, for example, have physical traits very similar to sub-

Saharan Africans, yet these Pacific Islanders are much further
apart on overall gene frequency (the percentage of genes of a
given type) from sub-Saharan Africans than from Europeans. A
less visible evolutionary trait is the ability to tolerate milk
beyond the age of weaning, which evolved both in Europeans
and in some Africans (Masai tribe) due to the domestication of
cattle. It stands to follow that if we attempt to infer relatedness
between human groups based only on physical traits like dark
skin and milk tolerance, we consistently incorrectly assign
groups of people together.
Physical factors fail to correctly cluster humans, and thus
cannot be used to assign people to racial groups—a fact
scientists have known since the 1940s!
Yet today, most Americans still utilize physical features to
judge the racial alignment of individuals. This mistake is
understandable in the context of American history, since
physical features were a reliable indicator of ancestry for much
of the nation’s history. Western Europeans (mainly from
England) founded this country. They invaded the territory of the
American Indians (whose recent biological descent was from
Central and Northeast Asia), and then captured, transported and
enslaved people from West and Central Africa. This meant that
the original inhabitants of our country were drawn from
geographically disparate portions of the human genetic
spectrum. However, soon after these populations were brought
together they began to amalgamate (sometimes willingly,
sometimes by force). Soon physical appearance was no longer a
reliable determinate of ancestry.
Genetics of race and ancestry
We’ve determined that “biological races” in the human species
do not exist. They cannot be determined by either physical or
genetic measures; what we think of as “races” are socially
assigned sets of characteristics that change depending on
context. This does not mean that there is not geographically
based genetic variation found in our species. It simply means

that this variation is not sufficient to describe biological races
within the species. How then is the concept of ancestry different
from that of race? Understanding the difference requires
understanding these two definitions:
· Biological/genetic ancestryis the proportion of recent ancestry
displayed in an individual via genetic material inherited from
one’s ancestral geographic origins.
· Social/cultural ancestry refers to the origin of attitudes,
beliefs and behaviors displayed by an individual.
To understand biological/genetic ancestry you must recognize
that the number of biological ancestors you have doubles each
generation into the past and rapidly becomes a very large
number. Every living person has two parents, four grandparents,
eight great-grandparents, and so on. A standard calculation of a
human generation is 30 years. If your family arrived in North
America at the time of the Jamestown landing of Africans or the
arrival of the Mayflower, that means your ancestors have been
on this continent for 13 generations. This also means you
contain—from that time to now—the genetic material from as
many as 8,192 individuals! And that estimate doesn’t even
begin to touch the number of ancestors who came before your
genes arrived in North America.
Although it is not possible to determine someone’s socially
defined race by examining their DNA, it is possible to estimate
the continental origin of different segments of an individual’s
DNA. Remember that all of us have deep ancestry in East
Africa; the proportion of our variable DNA that falls into that
category is about 85 percent. This means that about 15 percent
of our “recent” DNA could potentially be differentiated by
continent or region within a continent. No single genetic marker
is going to be a reliable estimate of ancestry, so statistical
methods, such as maximum likelihood, are used to make
estimates of a person’s ancestry.
Physical factors fail to correctly cluster humans, and thus
cannot be used to assign people to racial groups—a fact
scientists have known since the 1940s!

Ironically, ancestry studies have revealed a great deal about the
history of American racial subordination. We know from
ancestry genetic studies, for example, that the flow of European
genes into African Americans occurred mainly during slavery,
primarily through European men forcibly impregnating enslaved
African women. This is because the genetic code on the Y
chromosome is inherited intact from father to son. Numerous
ancestry studies have found large numbers of “European Ys”
circulating in the African-American and other formerly enslaved
communities, but not vice versa.
Finally, there has been much interest in using ancestry testing
to try to reconstruct lost identities. This was part of the
motivation behind the very successful PBS series African
American Livesand Finding Your Roots, conceived of and
hosted by Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. of Harvard
University. DNA ancestry testing has some ability to achieve
that goal, so long as one is cognizant of the limitations of the
methods, specifically the population assumptions underlying
them.
However, it is also important to realize that our genetic
composition is not ultimately the determinate of variations in
our complex behavior! The behavioral repertoire of
anatomically modern humans was already in place before
anyone left Africa. Thus, the variations we see in the
manifestation of these behaviors are mainly driven by cultural
evolution. Cultural evolution is the transmission of ideas across
groups of varying degrees of genetic relatedness. Thus, each
person’s social and cultural identity is contributed to by
ancestors from all over the world.
So, why should we teach about human genetic variation and the
difference between socially constructed race, biological race
and ancestry? Everything we know about our genetics has
proven that we are far more alike than we are different. If more
people understood that, it would be easier to debunk the myth
that people of a certain race are “naturally” one way or another.
And it would be easier to teach and live tolerance.How did we

get here?
How is it that our collective understanding of race is so flawed
and incomplete?
Our ignorance surrounding the meaning of socially defined race,
biological race and ancestry is not accidental. Like many
misconceptions, it results from a perfect storm of incompetence,
indifference, denial and design. This perfect storm affects our
K-12 and university education systems and—to some extent—
originates from them as well. This is not surprising considering
that our education system evolved alongside other social, legal
and economic systems designed to privilege European
Americans.
One factor that contributes to our confusion is that the
preconditions necessary to design and teach a curriculum that
would help our students understand the biological basis of
physical human variation (and its lack of concordance with
biological races) would be based in evolutionary science. In
many areas of the country administrators and teachers fear the
topic of evolution and are often inadequately prepared to teach
it.
Another factor that interferes with our understanding is the
manner in which unnamed and unaddressed racial bias disrupts
serious and factual discourse concerning the history of racial
injustice in the United States. Implicit bias—as opposed to
overtly aggressive, hateful racism—is a form of prejudice that
characterizes the thoughts, feelings and behaviors of one racial
group toward another. It manifests itself in several ways,
including bias and prejudices in many European Americans
toward African Americans, viewing them as aggressive,
impulsive and lazy.
These prejudices have real consequences for socially
subordinated racial minorities. For example, African-American
children are far more likely to be seen as adults in criminal
justice proceedings. As a result, African-American children are
18 times more likely than European-American children to be
sentenced as adults, and represent 58 percent of children

sentenced to adult facilities. European-Americans police
officers are also far more likely to misjudge the age of African-
American adolescents. This type of prejudice was largely
speculated to be a factor in the shootings of Tamir Rice,
Michael Brown and Trayvon Martin.
Implicit bias is supported by faulty science manufactured and
reproduced to maintain a racially defined social order. Without
a robust national dialogue about the realities of aversive racism,
we will not move past it. And a robust dialogue cannot happen
as long as we labor under false beliefs about fundamental
biological divisions defined by skin tone.
Put this story into action!
History reveals many instances in which institutional racism
influenced science and vice versa. Learn how one physician's
theories—which we now know to be deeply flawed—were used
to justify chattel slavery.
1All rights reserved. PACE Vol. 3-
No. 3 | © 2009 HighReach Learning® Inc.
Children Are Not
Colorblind: How Young
Children Learn Race
Erin N. Winkler, Ph.D.
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
There is a myth in popular culture that
young children are “colorblind” or don’t
notice race. By this logic, children are
“blank slates” who cannot develop racial
prejudices until they are explicitly taught
to do so. This leads many
adults to argue that we

should not discuss race
with preschoolers because
they are “too young,” and
even mentioning race will
“put ideas in their heads” or
“poison their minds.” When
young children talk about
race or express any bias,
it is often either dismissed
(“She doesn’t know what
she’s saying.”), blamed
on parents or other adults (“Someone
must have said that at home.”), or only
indirectly addressed as general bad
behavior (“We don’t say things like that
because it hurts people’s feelings.”).
However, current psychological research
suggests this approach is all wrong. In
fact, research clearly shows that children
not only recognize race from a very
young age, but also develop racial
biases by ages three to five that do not
necessarily resemble the racial attitudes
of adults in their lives (Aboud, 2008;
Hirschfeld, 2008; Katz, 2003; Katz & Kofkin,
1997; Patterson & Bigler, 2006; Van Ausdale &
Feagin, 2001). This research suggests that we
must rethink what we “know” about young
children and race.
What do children
learn, and when?
In a study that followed
approximately 200 black and

white children from the ages
of six months to six years, Katz
and Kofkin (1997) found that
infants are able to nonverbally
categorize people by race
and gender at six months
of age. The infants looked
significantly longer at an unfamiliar face of a
different race than they did at an unfamiliar
face of their same race. The researchers
argue that, because this finding is very
consistent in six-month-olds, “initial awareness
[of race] probably begins even earlier” (Katz
& Kofkin, 1997, p. 55).
Toddlers as young as two years use racial
categories to reason about people’s
behaviors (Hirschfeld, 2008), and numerous
studies show that three- to five-year-olds not
only categorize people by race, but express
Research clearly shows
that children not only
recognize race from a
very young age, but also
develop racial biases by
ages three to five.
2All rights reserved. PACE Vol.
3- No. 3 | © 2009 HighReach Learning® Inc.

bias based on race (Aboud, 2008; Hirschfeld,
2008; Katz, 2003; Patterson & Bigler, 2006). In a
yearlong study, Van Ausdale & Feagin (2001)
found that three- to five-year-olds in a racially
and ethnically diverse day care center used
racial categories to identify themselves and
others, to include or exclude children from
activities, and to negotiate power in their
own social/play networks.
How and why does this
happen?
Research has disproved the popular belief
that children only have racial biases if they
are directly taught to do so. Numerous studies
have shown that children’s racial beliefs
are not significantly or
reliably related to those of
their parents (Hirschfeld,
2008; Katz, 2003;
Patterson & Bigler, 2006).
While this may seem
counterintuitive, Hirschfeld
(2008) says it should not
surprise us. Children, he
argues, are motivated
to learn and conform to
the broader cultural and
social norms that will help
them function in society.
In order to gauge these
“community norms,”
children have to gather
information from a broad

range of sources – not
just their own families. He gives the example
of accents as a way of illustrating his point.
If children looked only or even mostly to
their parents to learn behaviors and norms,
then we would expect children of nonnative
speakers to acquire their parents’ accents.
Instead, children acquire the normative
accent of the region where they are growing
up (Hirschfeld, 2008).
So, children collect information from the
world around them in order to actively
construct their own beliefs (Patterson &
Bigler, 2006). But why do children form racial
biases so early in life, even if no one around
them is teaching them to do so? And why is
race a social category to which they attach
meaning? Why not height or hairstyle or left-
handedness? Scholars argue that there are
both internal (biological and cognitive) and
external (environmental and societal) factors
at play.
First, the immature cognitive structures of
preschoolers make them rife for stereotyping
(Aboud, 2008; Hirschfeld, 2008; Katz & Kofkin,
1997). While young children are able to
categorize people by race, they are often
not able to categorize a person according
to multiple dimensions at once (Aboud,
2008). Thus, they engage in “transductive
reasoning” – when they see people who are
alike in one dimension

(e.g., skin color), they
presume they are alike
in other dimensions as
well (e.g., abilities or
intelligence) (Katz & Kofkin,
1997; Patterson & Bigler,
2006).
Second, factors in
children’s environments,
and in our society as a
whole, teach children that
race is a social category
of significance. Bigler and
her colleagues found that
environments teach young
children which categories
seem to be most important
(Bigler & Liben, 2007;
Patterson & Bigler, 2006). Children then
attach meaning to those social categories
on their own, without adult instruction.
Patterson and Bigler (2006) argue that even
a seemingly innocuous statement like, “Good
morning, boys and girls,” helps children
infer that gender is an important social
category, and children can then attach
their own meanings to gender categories
(e.g., “Girls are smarter.”), or infer them from
their environment (e.g., “Only men can be
President of the United States.”), even if adults
do not mention or endorse those ideas.

Children also learn which social categories
are important by observing their
environments. They are likely to notice that
the people in their families or neighborhoods
are all different heights and have different
hairstyles, but perhaps almost all have the
same skin color. Therefore, children may
assume that they should avoid or dislike
people with different skin colors than their
own, even if no adult ever says this to them
(Aboud, 2005). Similarly, children may notice
when going to the store or the doctor’s
office or riding the bus that height and
hairstyle do not seem related to occupation
or neighborhood, but skin
color does. These patterns
form what Bigler & Liben
(2007) call a “cognitive
puzzle for children to solve”
(p. 164). When children
notice these patterns, they
often “infer that these are
norms or rules” (Aboud,
2008, p. 58) and that the
patterns “must have been
caused by meaningful
inherent differences
between groups” (Bigler &
Liben, 2007, p. 164).
Although children often

attach meaning to race
without adults directly
telling them to do so, it is
important to note that “the
biases children exhibit are
not random” (Katz & Kofkin,
1997, p. 62). In fact, they often “reflect both
subtle and not so subtle messages about the
relative desirability of belonging to one social
group as opposed to another” (Katz & Kofkin,
1997, p. 62). In other words, children pick up
on the ways in which whiteness is normalized
and privileged in U.S. society.
What does this mean? Consciously or
unconsciously, middle-class white culture
is presented as a norm or a standard in
the United States in terms of appearance,
beauty, language, cultural practices, food,
and so on (Johnson, 2006; McIntosh, 1990;
Tatum, 1997). Tatum (1997) argues that this
message is so prevalent in our society it is
like “smog in the air. Sometimes it is so thick
it is visible, other times it is less apparent, but
always, day in and day out, we are breathing
it in” (p. 6). For very young children, this
“smog” comes in the form of picture books,
children’s movies, television, and children’s
songs, which all include subtle messages that
whiteness is preferable (Giroux, 2001; Graves,
1999; Katz, 2003; McIntosh, 1990; Murray
& Mandara, 2002; Tatum, 1997). Even the
language and symbolism we use daily tends
to associate positive things with white (e.g.,

“purity,” “clean,” “Snow
White,” “the good witch”)
and negative things
with black (e.g., “evil,”
“sin,” “dirty,” “the wicked
witch”), and studies have
shown that children do
generalize these linguistic
connotations to people
(Katz, 2003; Tatum, 1997).
Researchers have found
that even very young
children develop what
psychologists call “in-
group bias,” or favoritism
towards the groups in
which they are members
(Patterson & Bigler, 2006).
However, as children
become more aware
of societal norms that
favor certain groups over
others, they will often show a bias toward
the socially privileged group. In their study
following a group of black and white children
over time, Katz and Kofkin (1997) found that
all of the children expressed an in-group bias
at the age of 30 months. When asked to
choose a potential playmate from among
photos of unfamiliar white and black boys
and girls, all of the children chose a same-
race playmate. However, by 36 months, “the
majority of both black and white children

chose white playmates” (p. 59) and this
pattern held at the 60-month mark, although
it decreased slightly at that point.
The authors argue that this is a reflection of
societal norms, noting that, in a variety of
studies, “white children rarely exhibit anything
other than a pro-white bias” (p. 62), while
children of color as young as five years old
show evidence of being aware of, and
negatively impacted by, stereotypes about
their racial group (Hirschfeld, 2008). Not
surprisingly then, research shows that parents
of children of color are much more likely to
talk to their children about race and racism
than white parents. These parents must teach
their children how to function in a racially
inequitable society, while still maintaining
racial pride and a positive sense of self (Hale-
Benson, 1990; Hughes et al., 2006; Lesane-
Brown, 2006). In this process, called racial
socialization, parents of children of color help
their children learn which societal messages
“to filter out, [and which] to promote” (Boykin
& Ellison, 1995, p. 124).
However, studies show that even parents
of color often think that preschool-aged

children are too young to have some of these
discussions. Katz and Kofkin (1997) found that
black parents were more likely to talk about
racial identity with their preschoolers than
were white parents (48% of black parents
vs. 12% of white parents), but neither black
nor white parents were likely to discuss
the racial differences their children saw in
media, on playgrounds, or in stores at this
age. Hughes & Chen (1999) also found that
African American parents were likely to talk
about culture and identity with their very
young children, but talk about racial inequity
and preparation for discrimination were
more likely to occur as the children grew
older. Van Ausdale & Feagin (2001) argue
that all children should be actively taught
to recognize and reject the “smog” of white
privilege, but that, if anti-bias education exists
in school curricula at all, it tends to be too
little, too late.
What should caregivers do?
Sometimes adults are silent on the issue
of race, prejudice, and racial inequity
because we ourselves are not comfortable
talking about them. Sometimes we give
no information or inaccurate information
because we ourselves do not fully understand
how racism works, why racial inequity still
exists in our society so many years after the
Civil Rights Movement, or what we can
do about it. Remember, adults have also
been socialized into society and are also
“breathing the smog” of cultural racism on

a daily basis. Although race and racism are
difficult topics, it is important to educate
ourselves and discuss them with children
in an age-appropriate way. So, what can
caregivers of young children do?
Talk about it!
When adults think that very young children
do not notice or cannot understand race
and racism, they avoid talking about it with
children in a meaningful way. Katz and her
colleagues found that parents of very young
children talk freely about gender, but not
about race (Katz & Kofkin, 1997). This silence
about race does not keep children from
noticing race and developing racial biases
and prejudices, it just keeps them from talking
about it (Aboud, 2005; Tatum, 1997). Consider
the following example from psychologist
Beverly Tatum (1997).
A White mother and preschool child
are shopping at the grocery store.
They pass a Black woman and child,
and the White child says loudly,
“Mommy, look at that girl! Why is
she so dirty?” (Confusing dark skin
with dirt is a common misconception
among White preschool children.)

The White mother, embarrassed
by her child’s comment, responds
quickly with a “Ssh!”
An appropriate response might
have been: “Honey, that little girl
is not dirty. Her skin is as clean as
yours. It’s just a different color. Just
like we have different color hair,
people have different skin colors.”
If the child still seemed interested,
the explanation of melanin could be
added. Perhaps afraid of saying the
wrong thing, however, many parents
don’t offer an explanation. They stop
at “Ssh,” silencing the child but not
responding to the question or the
reasoning underlying it. Children who
have been silenced often enough
learn not to talk about race publicly.
Their questions don’t go away, they
just go unasked. (p. 36)
The lesson for caregivers of young children
is: Do not shush children or shut down the
conversation. Instead, engage in open,
honest, frequent, and age-appropriate
conversation about race, racial differences,
and even racial inequity and racism.
Research has shown that such conversations
are associated with lower levels of bias in
young children (Katz, 2003). Let go of the
notion that you are “putting ideas in their
heads” by talking about race; as we have
seen, research shows that young children
notice race and draw conclusions about

difference on their own. Scholars point out
that avoiding conversation about race only
encourages “prevalent stereotypes [to]
remain unchanged” (as cited by Katz &
Kofkin, 1997, p. 56).
Be accurate and age-appropriate.
Hirschfeld (2008) argues that when adults
do discuss race with young children, they
often dilute the discussion because they
believe young children cannot understand
the complexities of this issue. This results in
a kind of superficial multicultural education
that focuses only on the celebration of
culture and individual heroes, and leaves
out any discussion of structural inequalities
(Hirschfeld, 2008; Lewis, 2003; Van Ausdale
& Feagin, 2001). Instead, children should be
“presented with appropriate – not dumbed
down – descriptions of the nature and scope
of structural racial inequity,” so that they
can “appreciate the group nature of racial
prejudice” (Hirschfeld, 2008, p. 49). On this
point, Van Ausdale & Feagin (2001) offer the
following advice to caregivers of preschool-
age children.
[D]on’t encourage children to
believe that negative racial talk or
discriminatory action is the conduct
of only “sick” individuals or that it
indicates a peculiar character flaw
or just “bad” behavior. Talk about

the fact that the social world we live
in is often unfair to people of color
simply because they are people of
color and that persisting racial-ethnic
inequalities are unjust and morally
wrong. Make it clear that racial-
ethnic prejudice and discrimination
are part of a larger society that
needs reform and not just something
that individuals do. (p. 208)
Educational resources for young children
often present the issue of racial discrimination
as something that happened in the past,
has been entirely overcome, and is today
only perpetrated by a few bad individuals.
Ironically, these resources can actually
reinforce racial prejudice in children
(Hirschfeld, 2008) because the take-away
message can be that any remaining
inequalities we see today are either natural
or the fault of people who suffer from
them, and that racial inequity is not the
responsibility of “good, normal people.” As
such, psychologists argue that it is important
to present racism and other social inequities
in a more accurate way, so children can
understand how discrimination really works
and recognize that it is a societal problem,
not an individual problem.

Take it seriously.
Because of the inaccurate but deep-
seated folk belief that “children cannot
be prejudiced,” many adults choose to
ignore or brush off incidences in which
young children express bias. Scholars warn
against this, arguing
that this only fuels the
fire of developing
prejudices (Aboud,
2008; Hirschfeld, 2008;
Van Ausdale & Feagin,
2001). Do not presume
that children have to
exhibit strong, hatefully
racist attitudes in
order to harbor racial
prejudice (Aboud,
2008). Also be aware
there is evidence
preschoolers raise
issues of race within
their own peer groups
more frequently than
their adult caregivers
know (Tatum, 1997;
Van Ausdale & Feagin,
2001). If name-calling
or other discrimination
happens at school and
then goes either unnoticed or is not discussed
by adults, children infer that the behavior is
widely accepted (Aboud, 2008). This means

that your role is critical! Be alert, and when
incidents do arise, avoid using vague scolding
about “hurting feelings” or “being mean,” but
rather discuss the issue in a specific, head-on
way.
Moreover, caregivers should know that this
is an important issue in all classrooms, even
(and perhaps especially) if there is no racial
or ethnic diversity in that classroom or local
area. Children pick up ideas about race from
our broader popular culture – remember
the “smog in the air,” and the less actual,
meaningful contact they have with people
from other racial groups besides their own,
the more likely they are to retain higher levels
of prejudice (Allport, 1954; Aboud, 2008;
Pettigrew & Tropp, 2006).
Encourage complex thinking.
Aboud (2008) argues that anti-bias
interventions with young children are too
often based only “on the false premise that
prejudice is due to
ignorance” (p. 68). In
fact, she argues, just
providing information
is not enough because
young children
sometimes reject
information that goes
against their existing
in-group biases. So
what can be done?

Studies have shown
that teaching young
children to think in a
more complex way can
be effective in reducing
prejudice. When
children are taught to
pay attention to multiple
attributes of a person
at once (e.g., not just
race), reduced levels of
bias are shown (Aboud,
2008). So, in addition to
giving accurate information about race and
racism, caregivers should focus on teaching
children to think critically (Tatum, 1997).
Empower!
Perhaps the most important thing caregivers
can do is provide children with ideas about
how to fight against the continuing racial
inequity and discrimination in our society
(Tatum, 1997; Van Ausdale & Feagin, 2001).
Empower the children! Actively seek out
anti-racist role models in your community and
in the broader society, and expose young
children to these role models (Tatum, 1997;
Van Ausdale & Feagin, 2001). Show children
that, while we do face troubling problems as

a society, there are people and organizations
that are invested in making positive change.
Show children they can help too! Involve
them in projects that allow real participation
in the process of change. For more ideas, see
“Additional Resources for Educators” below.
Conclusion
In order to address issues of racial bias
and prejudice with children and help
them understand race and inequity in our
society, caregivers must first be comfortable
addressing these issues themselves. After
all, adults have also been socialized into a
culture that silences conversations about
race and a culture in which subtle racialized
images are all around us. Van Ausdale &
Feagin (2001) remind us that educating
children about these issues “requires that we
rethink our ideas about several dimensions
of everyday life, including the nature of
racial and ethnic oppression, the intellectual
capacity of children, our willingness to effect
changes in oppressive social conditions, and
the extent of children’s social skills” (p. 199).
This is difficult but important work, and early
childhood educators play a critical role.
Additional resources for
educators:
www.tolerance.org
www.teachingforchange.org

References
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AUTHOR NARRATIVE:
Erin N. Winkler received her
Ph.D. in African American
Studies from the University of
California, Berkeley, in 2005.
She is an assistant professor
in the Department of Africology at the
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, where she
teaches courses on the racial socialization
of children, the psychology of racism, and
representations of race in U.S. popular culture.
She is currently conducting research on the
racial socialization experiences of African
American children and on the pedagogy of
racism in university “diversity requirement”
courses.
Lewis, A. E. (2003). Race in the schoolyard: Negotiating the
color line in classrooms and communities. New Brunswick,
NJ: Rutgers University Press.
McIntosh, P. (1990). White privilege: Unpacking the invisible
knapsack. Independent School, 49, 31–36.
Murray, C. B., & Mandara, J. (2002). Racial identity
development in African American children: Cognitive and
experiential antecedents. In H. P. McAdoo (Ed.), Black
children: Social, educational, and parental environments
(pp. 73–96). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
Patterson, M. M., & Bigler, R. S. (2006). Preschool children’s
attention to environmental messages about groups: Social
categorization and the origins of intergroup bias. Child
Development, 77, 847–860.

Pettigrew, T. F., & Tropp, L. R. (2006). A meta-analytic test of
intergroup contact theory. Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology, 90, 751–783.
Tatum, B. D. (1997). Why are all the black kids sitting
together in the cafeteria? And other conversations about
race. New York, NY: Basic Books.
Van Ausdale, D., & Feagin, J. R. (2001). The first R: How
children learn race and racism. Lanham, MD: Rowman &
Littlefield.
The Child Development Associates (CDA)
competencies that can be linked to this article
are:
• To support social and emotional development
and to provide positive guidance
For more information on the CDA competency
requirements, contact the Council for Early
Childhood Recognition at 800-424-4310 or visit
www.cdacouncil.org.
The Certified Childcare Professionals (CCP)
professional ability areas linked to this article are:
• The ability to enhance the social and
emotional
development of young children.
For more information on the CCP certification,
contact the National Child Care Association at
800-543-7161 or visit www.nccanet.org.

SEARCH
N U M B E R S , FA C T S A N D T R E N D S S H A P I N
G Y O U R W O R L D A B O U T F O L L O W D O N AT E
Social & Demographic Trends
M E N U R E S E A R C H A R E A S
J U N E 1 0 , 2 0 1 5
What Census Calls Us: A Historical Timeline
M Y A C C O U N T !
# ! " !
1790
WHITE
BLACK
OTHER
AMER. INDIAN/ALASKA
ASIAN
HAWAII/PAC. ISLANDER
HISPANIC

1960 onward: People could choose their own race.
2000 onward: Americans could be recorded in more than one
race category on the census form.
1790
1800 1810 1820 1830 1840 1850 1860 1870 1880 1890 1900
1910 1920 1930 1940
1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000
2010
White
Black, African American or Negro
Some other race
American Indian or Alaska Native
Free white males, Free white females
All other free persons
Slaves
E
How Census Race Categories Have
Changed Over Time
xplore the different race, ethnicity and origin categories
used in the U.S. decennial census, from the first one in

1790 to the latest count in 2010. The category names often
changed in a reflection of current politics, science and public
attitudes. For example, “colored” became “black,” with “Negro”
and “African American” added later. The term “Negro” will be
dropped for the 2020 census. Through 1950, census-takers
commonly determined the race of the people they counted.
From 1960 on, Americans could choose their own race. Starting
in 2000, Americans could include themselves in more than one
racial category. Before that, many multiracial people were
counted in only one racial category.
Select a year to compare census designations by decade.
x
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*The U.S. Census Bureau does not consider Hispanic/Latino
identity to be a race. Ethnicity is asked as a separate question.

See Chapter 7 of
"Multiracial in America" report for more details.
Chinese
Japanese
Filipino
Korean
Asian Indian
Vietnamese
Other Asian
Native Hawaiian
Samoan
Guamanian or Chamorro
Other Pacific Islanders
Mexican, Mexican American, Chicano [+]
Puerto Rican
Cuban
Another Hispanic, Latino, Spanish origin
https://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2015/06/11/chapter-7-the-
many-dimensions-of-hispanic-racial-identity/

Source: U.S. Census Bureau
06945 Topic: The Social Construction of Racial and Ethnic
Groups [WLOs: 2, 4] [CLOs: 1, 2, 3, 5]
Number of Pages: 3 (Double Spaced)
Number of sources: 3
Writing Style: APA
Type of document: Dissertation Chapter - Discussion
Academic Level:Undergraduate
Category: Sociology
Language Style: English (U.S.)
Order Instructions: Attached
Please follow the instructions as attachments and Resources
attached because this assignment is already due which I don't
much time or delay.
Thank you and God Bless,
Gardiner

The Social Construction of Racial and Ethnic Groups [WLOs 2, 4] [.docx

The Social Construction of Racial and Ethnic Groups [WLOs 2, 4] [.docx

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The Social Construction of Racial and Ethnic Groups [WLOs 2, 4] [.docx