Society & Culture - Posted by Tim Green-U. Texas on Wednesday, March 2, 2011 15:55 - 3 Comments 
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(1 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5) Loading ...Teens disagree on racial measures
White parents who want their children to believe that racial inequality no longer exists in the U.S. may be a reason why white youth aren't as supportive of affirmative action policies as African American teenagers. (Credit: iStockphoto)
U. TEXAS-AUSTIN (US) — Many white teenagers believe that racial inequality has disappeared in the U.S. and therefore don’t support affirmative action and school desegregation.
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The text of this article by Futurity is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivatives License.
African American teenagers, on the other hand, expressed significant support for those policies.
A new study, published in the journal Developmental Psychology, reveals differences of opinion within both racial groups on the use of race-conscious policies to promote racial equality.
Among both African Americans and whites, a strong connection exists between respondents’ disapproval of race-conscious policies and the belief that racial inequalities have disappeared in the United States.
Adolescence may be an especially significant stage of cognitive development when racial attitudes begin to take shape, says Rebecca Bigler, professor of psychology at the University of Texas-Austin.
During this critical stage of development, parents need to have direct conversations about race and racism with their teenagers to increase their understanding of racial disparities in the United States.
“The most common mistake—especially with white parents—is they want their children to believe we live in a society where race doesn’t matter, and they believe that being ‘color mute’ will achieve this goal,” Bigler says.
“Direct conversations at home and in the classroom about prejudice and discrimination can significantly improve children’s attitudes about race.”
For the study, psychologists surveyed 210 high school students between the ages of 14 and 17 about their views on affirmative action and school desegregation.
In a series of studies, African American and white adolescents from diverse economic backgrounds answered questions about their knowledge of the history of racism and perceptions of racial discrimination. They also completed Implicit Association Tests (IAT), in which they reported their reactions to racial groups by associating positive and negative words with images of African American and white faces.
Other key findings include:
- By age 16, African Americans supported school desegregation and affirmative action programs more strongly than whites.
- Overall, whites scored higher than African Americans on a short quiz about racism in U.S. history, but were less likely than African Americans to believe that racial inequalities persist.
- African American respondents who knew more about historical racism were more supportive of an affirmative action policy.
- IAT scores reflecting racially biased attitudes were significantly higher among whites than African Americans.
- Whites with unfavorable implicit or unconscious perceptions of African Americans were more likely than their peers to view race-conscious social policies negatively, suggesting the respondents’ negative views of African Americans led them to view racial integration as an unimportant goal.
- Whites who perceived greater racial disparities in contemporary society—and attributed those disparities to racism—were more supportive of both types of programs than their peers.
Researchers from the College of New Jersey contributed to the study.
More news from University of Texas at Austin: www.utexas.edu/news/
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3 Comments
John
Kevin
Why would someone who is benefiting from affirmative action by virtue of greatly increased chances of admission to top schools or jobs, especially in this extremely competitive age NOT support the program?
Of course you will see high support, therefore, for affirmative action among African Americans or Hispanic Americans…. they are reaping the rewards, just like anyone else (White, Black, Yellow, Brown, Red, Green, Purple) would take anything they could have (up to the point of cheating!) to gain admission among the elite.
The real question… it is obvious that Asian-Americans face incredible difficulties as a minority, yet they are not benefactors to affirmative action… and it is also quite obvious they are not asking for affirmative action, but realize its level of unfairness instead.
@ Kevin: the point of affirmative action has to do with repairing the egregious and systematic oppression of a specific group. I find it hard to believe that you don’t already know that, since racism toward blacks is still a pervasive aspect of American culture.
It is problematic that affirmative action has a self-perpetuating interest build into it, and there are other aspects that deserve discussion and debate. But to do this some knowledge of the topic is required.
The only way to eliminate racisim is to eliminate race. What will happen when in 3 generations our racial lines are so muddled it no longer becomes reasonable to ask what your race is? Will the NAACP, and the Rainbow Coalition, The Black Congressional Cacaus, and El Centro DeLa Raza cease to exist?
It seems to me that the agencys who speak out against racisim have the most to gain by it’s continuation.