Photo: Stocksy Unlunited
?I don?t like Adam because he has black skin.? When Erin Devine* heard her four-year-old son, Ewan*, utter these words about a classmate, she was mortified. Her first thought" My child?s a racist! She wondered what could have sparked such a comment. Though Devine and her family are Caucasian, they live in multicultural Toronto, and Ewan had been in daycare with kids of various backgrounds for years. Race was never an issue?or so Devine thought.
?One day after that incident, we were sitting around talking about people and Ewan asked, ?Do they have white skin or black skin"? We said, ?It doesn?t matter?we?re all the same inside,?? recalls Devine. But when Ewan declared he was no longer a fan of his NHL idol, the Montreal Canadiens? P.K. Subban, because he?s black, Devine really started to worry. ?He had been obsessed with P.K. since age two. Suddenly, he refused to wear his P.K. jersey or sleep with his P.K. doll.? Ewan?s behaviour is actually quite normal. ?Beginning at age three, kids become what I like to call amateur sociologists,? says Yarrow Dunham, director of the Social Cognitive Development Lab at Yale University, which explores how young children navigate the social world. ?They?re realizing that people can be divided into kinds. They begin to categorize people, such as bad guys and good guys. They?ll notice who?s wearing a particular sports team?s jersey, or who has curly hair. Not surprisingly, ethnic categories come into play a...