Children’s openness to minorities is later overridden by learned societal views

Evidence

Allport rightly dismissed as a post-hoc rationalization people’s justification that their prejudice arose from early traumatic experiences. In his contact theory (see Pettigrew & Tropp, ch. 16 this volume), he elaborated on the other side of the coin, namely the benefits of positive intergroup experiences. However, Allport’s anecdotes about early biracial schooling suggest that though White children freely play with minority children (1954/ 1979, p. 309) and are “interested, curious, and appreciative of differences” (p. 304), they are also becoming aware of societal and parental views that contradict their actions and will eventually override their openness. — , Rudman, Laurie A - On the Nature of…, 1980

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Physical and symbolic ties to homeland drive minority-race identification in children — Tatiana I. Zamora and Amado M. Padilla, Making sense of conflicting messages of…, 122; Children absorb their teachers’ racism through internalized pedagogies of observation — James D. Kirylo (ed.), Reinventing Pedagogy of the Oppressed:…, 244; Standardized early childhood curricula encode a white-supremacist moral color hierarchy — James D. Kirylo (ed.), Reinventing Pedagogy of the Oppressed:…, 260