Although psychologists and sociologists have studied the origin and nature of European American children’s racial biases for decades, relatively little is known about the role of European American families in shaping their young children’s understanding of and attitudes about race. The primary goal of the current study was to examine European American mothers’ approaches to race-related issues with their children, with particular interest in exploring the ways mothers may influence their young children’s racial attitudes. I explored these questions by completing a multi-method study of 84 European American mothers and their four- to five-year-old children. Mothers read two books with race-related themes out loud to their children and then completed surveys concerning their race-related attitudes and behaviors while their children worked with a researcher to complete measures of cognitive skills and racial attitudes. Results indicated that European American mothers provide few race-related messages to their preschool-aged children. Specifically, mothers’ self-reports of their racial socialization strategies and their behaviors during the book reading session indicated that they are reluctant to discuss race explicitly. Furthermore, neither mother’s self-reported racial socialization strategies nor their behavior in the lab predicted their children’s racial attitudes. Instead, children’s racial attitudes were related to their mothers’ friendships. Those children whose mothers had a higher percentage of non-European Americans friends showed lower levels of racial biases than those children whose mothers had a lower percentage of non-European American friends. This study suggests that children’s racial attitudes are unaffected by mothers’ vague messages about diversity; instead, it seems that mothers need to engage in intimate, cross-race relations and send explicit, frequent race-related messages if they hope to influence their children’s racial attitudes. / text

We disbelieve it; we deny it; we even disguise it; but racial prejudice continues to permeate the United States. As a result, researchers labor to determine variables that can reduce these attitudes and consequently, improve social behavior. Three confirmed conditions that can reduce racial attitudes include: (a) awareness to racial biases, (b) motivation for bias reduction, and (c) cognitive strategies for prejudice regulation. However, racial awareness are usually nonexistent for White Americans, and when introduced, racial awareness can cause negative outcomes, such as guilt or denial, that can decrease motivation to reduce one’s prejudice levels. The construct and practices of mindfulness may provide a solution to these limitations and help reduce racial prejudice levels for White individuals. The present dissertation explored the initial steps of this racial mindfulness program of research by first investigating the influence of White participants' degree of mindfulness on their racial prejudice levels using structural equation modeling. Because mindfulness can increase awareness to stimuli, mindfulness could meet the first prejudice reduction condition (i.e., raise awareness to racial stimuli), and therefore, reduce racial prejudice levels directly. In addition, mindfulness has been found to increase similar variables that influences motivation to reduce racial prejudice levels, such as empathy and interconnectedness. Therefore, White participants’ degree of mindfulness could decrease their racial prejudice levels indirectly as well. Results from this study indicated that mindfulness did not reduce racial prejudice levels directly or indirectly, although there were some methodology limitations that could have obscured the results. The next step investigated if White participants' degree of mindfulness can attenuate the negative affects that can arise when Whites first become aware of racial biases, as mindfulness has been found to mitigate ego defensiveness and negative emotions when one's self-esteem is threatened. Written reactions to a White privilege article from White participants identified as holding a high and low degree of general mindfulness were subject to content analysis. The results indicated that participants with a high degree of mindfulness exhibited greater awareness and acceptance to White privilege and less negative reactions. The findings support the need to create and explore a racial mindfulness intervention. / text

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