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Class: Anderson Cooper 360s Kids on Race: The Hidden Picture

READING

from the Anderson Cooper 360 Website:

Our ongoing "Kids on Race" series has sought to locate the origins of racial issues that so often seem native to the American experience. We decided that by talking directly with children innocent, impressionable, and honest as they are slowly being introduced to society, we might learn how prejudice can take hold of young minds... and from this early point, despite our best intentions, sometimes never let go. We enlisted Dr. Melanie Killen, a revered child psychologist and University of Maryland professor, to design and implement our study. She ensured that our methods remained scientifically intact throughout the process. She helped highlight and explain key findings. She offered advice and explanations to parents who allowed their children to participate.

1. Remember our discussions of gender as a social construction. How are race and racial attitudes the same?

2. Watch Study: Race Relations Through a Childs Eyes Pay attention: According to the study, how do kids pick up on the racial attitudes in the world around them? How does this change as students get older? 2a) Where do messages on race and racial attitudes come from?

What is implicit bias?

2b) According to the video, why are young black children more positive about race than young white children?

3. Watch Kids Speak Their Minds about Interracial Friendship 3a) What changes about racial attitudes from childhood to adolescence? Why?

3b) What can make a major positive difference?

4. Watch Mikaylas Story. In this installment, Cooper investigates "subconscious racial bias." This is described as "a bias that kids pick up on from messages they hear at school, at home, the characters in the TV shows they watch, what they see online." As Killen points, these are not overt feelings of racism, but rather "the things that we're not aware of, the things that we do when we don't realize it."