The relationship of mothers' racial attitudes to their preschool children's racial awareness and racial attitudes in selected Winnipeg families
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Date
1978
Authors
MacDonald, Margaret.
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Abstract
This study had two objectives: to replicate American research concerned with racial awareness and racial attitudes in young children with a group of 42 Winnipeg Preschoolers and to provide a test of social learning theory by comparing mothers' racial attitudes toward. Blacks with their children's racial awareness and racial attitudes. The Morland Picture Interview was used to measure the children's racial awareness and racial attitudes; the Bogardus Social Distance Scale and questions on an interview schedule developed by the author were used to measure the mothers' racial attitudes. The children in Winnipeg were found to have a lower level of racial awareness than the children in the American studies. The comparison of the children's racial attitudes revealed that the children in the present study had stronger pro-white biases, lower White preference scores and lower Black acceptance scores than the American children. These differences were discussed in terms of the structural-normative hypothesis, which relates racial social structure to racial awareness and racial attitudes in young children. It was hypothesized that mothers' racial attitudes would affect their children's racial awareness and racial attitudes. Statistical analysis did not support the hypotheses. Failure to find support for the hypotheses was attributed primarily to methodological factors.