Multiple Methods to Evaluate Racial Biases in Multiracial Children

Abstract

Several studies have shared that an important part of many children's development of explicit racial biases are influenced by the social context. Majority of our understanding about development of social biases has been based on monoracial children. There are many unanswered questions on the way being raised in a multiracial household may shape racial biases in early childhood. We are developing a study that investigates race related biases in Multiracial children. The study includes 3 measures of explicit racial bias and 1 implicit racial bias task. Data will be collected over Zoom with children aged 4-8 years of age. For explicit biases we will evaluate how much participants like someone of a different race, who children want to learn novel information from, and who children prefer to socialize with. The implicit racial bias task evaluates racial attitudes of positive and negative associations of White and Black faces. The next step of this project is to pilot tasks with adults and children. This project is important because to equip and support Multiracial children we must understand the changes and development of racial biases in earlier stages of life. We anticipate, Multiracial children having weaker racial bias.