2010-05-22 CNN
People of a certain age sort of remember times of great racial conflict in this country, and divide that seemed pretty much impossible to bridge. And 60 years ago, researchers used the simple doll test to see how children view race, seeing their reaction to black and white baby dolls. Well CNN has commission now on a new study, a second doll test if you will. Now, Anderson Cooper takes up, look at the results.
There are lots of different colors for skin.
I have questions for you about these pictures of different children.As I read the question, I want you to point to the picture that fits the story.
Are children color blind in America?
Show me the smart child，Show me the mean child.Can you show me the dumb child?Show me the nice child.
Is bias measurable even at an early age?
Why is she the bad child? Because she's black, black.
Why is he the ugly child?
Because he， he looks like he's white.
Why is he the dumb child?
Because she has dark-brown skin.
Why is she the bad child?
Because she makes fun of everybody else's skin color.
How much do kids learn from what they see and hear from adults?
Show me the child who has the skin color most adults like?
And show me the child who has the skin color most adults don't like.
These are questions that we, along with CNN's Soledad O'Brien and a team of psychologists hired by CNN spent months investigating through tests, interviews with children and their parents. They are questions that had been asked for decades.
The first doll study ignited controversy in the 1940s when psychologists Kenneth and Mamie Clark pioneered studies in the effects of segregation in schools by asking African-American kids to choose between black and white dolls. The so-called doll test found black kids overwhelmingly preferred white over black. Those results were at the center of the landmark 1954 Supreme Court case Brown vs. the Board of Education that desegregated American schools.
Now, with a first African-American president and nearly 60 years after segregation was overturned, we wondered, where are we today? How do kids see differences in race? What we discovered might shock you, but first, how we got there.
Skin color, a child's skin color estimate.OK, yeah.
We asked renowned child psychologist and University of Chicago researcher Dr. Margaret Beale Spencer to design a pilot study for CNN and analyze the results.Our children are always near us, you know, because we're a society. And what we put out there, kids report back. You ask the question, they'll give you the answer.
Spencer's team tested more than 130 kids in eight schools with very different racial and economic demographics. Half of the schools were in the north, half in the south.