Mike wrote:
>>Resarch by Hirschfeld on little kids notions of social categories
points toward a very early, perhaps domain specific notion that
corresponds to "race" such that little kids will identify someone as
"black">>
It is very likely that what is referred to as 'kids' by Hirschfeld are kids
raised in specific contexts of cultures where race is being used as a
socially significant label. I can attest that kids raised in cultures where
such labels are not systematically used in everyday life are not sensitive
to any 'color-related' distinctions even at the age of 6 (my own personal
but very participatory and longitudinal observation). It takes several years
of being exposed to the culture where race is salient for a child to start
paying any attention to 'colour'. At least during a whole first year of
being in a classroom with kids of a very diverse racial background, this
child has been systematically referring to her classmates in any terms BUT
the racial ones (when asked who the classmates are, the child would describe
them in terms of gender, friendliness, in terms of what they wear and how
long their hair is etc. etc but never as 'black' and 'white').
Not surprizing at all in view of the CHAT perspective, I would think.
Anna Stetsenko
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