Intersecting Identities: Fantasy, Popular Culture, and Feminized “Race”-Gender

Abstract

In this chapter we explore in more depth how white discourses can work in children’s lives with a focus on the politics of young girls gender-“race” identities. From the earliest studies of “race” and young children’s identities (e.g., Clark and Clark, 1939; Horowitz, 1939) researchers have studied the differences between the racial preferences and awareness of boys and girls. For instance, in the Clark and Clark (1939) study they found that the sex of the child mattered to what was found:

The most significant aspect of the results … is the fact that the choices of the boys show significant trends whereas those of the girls seems to approximate chance. This fact can be best understood if it is remembered that the boys were making identifications of themselves while the girls were identifying brothers, cousins, and in a few instances a boy playmate. Because of this difference in response it would appear that either the technique used in this investigation has greater validity when used with boys than when used with girls, or that the dynamics involved when girls identify someone other than themselves is quite different from the self-identification of the boys. (pp. 596–597)