{"id":2671,"date":"2010-05-11T07:05:26","date_gmt":"2010-05-11T14:05:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/?p=2671"},"modified":"2013-07-31T11:23:47","modified_gmt":"2013-07-31T15:23:47","slug":"education-professor-contributes-to-anderson-cooper-360-report-on-race","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/?p=2671","title":{"rendered":"Education Professor Contributes to \u201cAnderson Cooper 360\u00b0\u201d Report on Race"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"dellangelo
Dell'Angelo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This week (May 17\u201321), CNN will air a series of reports examining children\u2019s attitudes toward race. Tabitha Dell\u2019Angelo<\/strong>, an assistant professor of early childhood and elementary education at TCNJ, served as a consultant on the project.<\/p>\n

The Anderson Cooper 360\u00b0<\/em> investigative series, \u201cBlack and White: Kids on Race,\u201d will revisit the 1947 \u201cDoll Test\u201d in which African-American psychologists Kenneth and Mamie Clark revealed the psychological effects of segregation on children. In their experiment, the Clarks asked children to associate certain attributes (for example, good, bad, smart, and dumb) with either a Black or White doll. The majority of the children associated positive attributes with the White dolls, and negative attributes with the Black dolls.<\/p>\n

The Clarks\u2019 research offered proof that \u201csegregation was causing psychological harm to all children, because by segregating schools and segregating [other institutions], children [were learning] that brown is bad and white is good,\u201d explained Dell\u2019Angelo. Their findings were eventually included in the arguments for the plaintiffs in the U.S. Supreme Court case, Brown v. Board of Education<\/em>.<\/p>\n

When Cooper decided to explore how children\u2019s attitudes toward race might have changed in the last 60 years, producers for his show recruited a team of child psychologists to replicate, design, and analyze the Clarks\u2019 experiment. Margaret Beale Spencer, a Marshall Field IV professor of urban education at the University of Chicago, coordinated the CNN study. Beale Spencer asked Dell\u2019Angelo to assist because the two had work together on a similar study while at the University of Pennsylvania. Dena Phillips Swanson, a professor from Rochester University\u2019s Warner School of Education, also assisted with the CNN project.<\/p>\n

In March, Dell\u2019Angelo, Philips Swanson, and CNN camera crews traveled to selected grade schools in the Northeast and Southeast to conduct their study. The TCNJ professor explained that one of the critiques of the Clarks\u2019 original study was that the children were given a \u201cforced choice\u201d\u2014that is, they had to choose either a Black or White doll when answering. For the CNN study, Dell\u2019Angelo and her colleagues allowed the respondents to choose from five illustrations of a baby, all of which were identical except for variations in the color shade (or skin tone).<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we found is there is still a preference for light, even in kids with dark skin,\u201d said Dell\u2019Angelo. \u201cThe preference wasn\u2019t to the same extent [as in the Clarks\u2019 test], but it\u2019s still there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Still, Dell\u2019Angelo said that one thing that doesn\u2019t show up in the final data she and her colleagues supplied to CNN were the number of children who wouldn\u2019t answer the researchers\u2019 questions, seemingly unwilling to make assumptions about others based solely on appearance.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere were a decent number of kids who\u2026 would say, \u2018How do I know who the smart kid is? I would have to know them,\u2019\u201d Dell\u2019Angelo said. \u201cOr in response to a question about which children they\u2019d like to play with at home, some kids would say, \u2018I would have to know them first.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Dell\u2019Angelo didn\u2019t know which of the children\u2019s responses would be shown when the AC 360\u00b0<\/em> series airs in June, but she did caution that if any of the children\u2019s remarks seem insensitive or inflammatory, it’s important to keep in mind where they are developmentally.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese kids aren\u2019t who they are going to be,\u201d Dell\u2019Angelo said. \u201cThey\u2019re 5 and 9 years old. If they say something that seems provocative\u2026we [shouldn\u2019t] put a label on these kids that follows them for all perpetuity in \u2018video land.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

For more information on the report, visit http:\/\/www.cnn.com\/SPECIALS\/2010\/kids.on.race\/<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From May 17\u201321, CNN will be airing a series of reports examining children\u2019s attitudes toward race. Tabitha Dell\u2019Angelo, an assistant professor of early childhood and elementary education at TCNJ, served as a consultant on the project.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2674,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,34,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2671","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-in-focus","category-may-2010","category-on-campus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2671","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2671"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2671\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2674"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2671"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2671"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2671"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}