Dissertation Research: Children's Construction of Ethnic Categories in Brazil

Regents Of The University Of Michigan - Ann Arbor, Ann Arbor MI

Investigators

Abstract

0108922 Hirschfeld / Baran This dissertation research project by an anthropology student from the University of Michigan studies how children and adolescents learn about race in Belmonte, Bahia, Brazil. The project advances our understanding of the interactions between child development and the cultural environment in social category formation. The research will synthesize two lines of work: cognitive psychology's studies of child development and anthropology's work on the social and historical construction of racial classification and inequality. The research design includes participant observation in schools, extra-school social and family settings; semi-structured interviews with a sample of family members of focal children and adolescents; and a racial census with two different conditions to understand the relation between biological systems of categorization and social identification based on phenotype as a function of age. The information collected will shape anthropological theories of childhood and social categorization, and psychological notions of the universality of cognitive development. In addition the research advances our understanding of race relations in Brazil and contributes to the training of a young social scientist.