NCJ Number
194337
Journal
Social Problems Volume: 49 Issue: 1 Dated: February 2002 Pages: 58-78
Date Published
February 2002
Length
21 pages
Annotation
Elaborating on previous clique dynamic studies, this study showed how preadolescents in two different day camps used race-based dynamics of inclusion and exclusion to establish and negotiate their peer relations.
Abstract
In joining the work of other sociologists exploring children's use of race, this study examined preadolescents’ interactional negotiation of race in their locally shared peer cultures in two racially varied recreational settings and then used prior studies to analyze outcomes. Observations were based on two different summer day camps providing activities initiated and directed by children. Camps were chosen based on their differences in policies toward children's racial practices; a typical camp and a cultural awareness camp. The typical camp was a predominantly white setting where race was not explicitly mentioned by staff or by policy. The cultural awareness camp’s policies instituted an explicit resistance to the negative significance of distinctions. Observations indicated that the wider range of people from different race categories present at the cultural awareness camp meant that children saw they had choices about splits and alliances they could form along pan-ethnic lines. At the typical camp, campers saw two race category options; majority white and minority Black. The campers at the cultural awareness camp saw that they had more race categories that they could appropriate, evaluate, and use. The children in the predominantly white setting and multiracial setting appropriated, used, and negotiated race somewhat similarly. However, they differed in how they complicated and resisted race-based clique dynamics. The multiracial setting provided a greater range of relational options introducing a wider range of power dynamics into clique structures and more instability and fluidity into conceptions of race. References