White Kids and Race: An Ethnographic Study of White Racial Socialization, Privilege, and the (Re)Production of Racial Ideology in Affluent Families Público
Hagerman, Margaret Ann (2014)
Abstract
Theories of contemporary racism offer assertions about how white children produce ideas about race that remain largely untested. Drawing on participant observations in public and private spaces, parent and child interviews, and content analysis, this two-year ethnographic study of thirty white affluent families with middle-school-aged children explores the role that family plays in shaping how white children form racial knowledge. This study examines how affluent white parents--those whose resources enable them to freely shape and choose their communities, schools, activities, etc.--construct particular racial contexts for their white children, how kids interact within these contexts, and the racial knowledge that white children produce as a result. In contrast to much of the research conducted on racial socialization in black, Latino, and Asian families, I find that explicit and deliberate messages about race are not the primary mechanism of racial socialization in white families. Rather, racial socialization in white families depends on how parents create for their kids what I call a racial context of childhood. I define racial context of childhood as one that is "designed" by white parents both consciously and unconsciously and includes such things as: decisions about where to live and send their children to school, how to talk (explicitly and implicitly) about race-related issues including affective aspects of these conversations, the opportunity for intergroup contact and friendship formation, patterns of media consumption, and children's access to knowledge about current events and the history of race in America. I find that variation in these racial contexts of childhood is connected to differences in white parents' ideological positions on race and in turn help explain the striking differences in the content of the racial logic expressed by children in the study. Overall, this research explores the complexity and nuance of how racial contexts of childhood are constructed, disjunctures that exist within them, how racial contexts of childhood are experienced and lived, and what the consequences of growing up within them are in terms of how white middle-school-aged children produce knowledge about race, racism, and privilege in contemporary America.
Table of Contents
CHAPTER 1: Introduction.............................................................................................. 1
CHAPTER 2: Methods................................................................................................. 30
PART I: SHERIDAN.......................................................................................................... 65
CHAPTER 3: The Schultz Family--Constructing a Colorblind Context......... 67
CHAPTER 4: The Avery Family--Race Talk in Sheridan........................................ 96
CHAPTER 5: The Chablis Family--Noticing Race in a ‘Colorblind' Place...... 122
PART II: EVERGREEN................................................................................................... 141
CHAPTER 6: The Lacey Family--Constructing a Color-conscious Context. 146
CHAPTER 7: The Norton-Smith Family--"Beating it into them"..................... 179
CHAPTER 8: The Patterson Family--A Mundane Approach.............................. 208
PART III: WHEATON HILLS......................................................................................... 226
CHAPTER 9: The Hayes Family--Academic Achievement and Justified Avoidance 231
CHAPTER 10: The Norbrook Family--Diversity Discourse.............................. 270
CHAPTER 11: The Boone Family--"Good" Diversity, Obesity, and Religion as Justified Avoidance 293
CHAPTER 12: The Palmer-Ross Family--Changes Over Time in One Family... 320
CHAPTER 13: Conclusions.................................................................................. 347
Bibliography.......................................................................................................... 354
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