Race Awareness Among American and Hong Kong Chinese Children

Research with young children in the United States, New Zealand, and South Africa has indicated that children of subordinate races tend to prefer and identifty with members of dominant races, while children of dominant races tend to prefer and identify with members of thier own race. To test this generalization in a setting which, while multiracial, does not have subordinate-dominant relations, the author measured race awareness in Chinese children in Hong Kong and compared the results with race awareness in American Caucasian and Negro children. The findings gave support to the generalization and also to the normative theory of racial prejudice.