This research article focuses to uncover important issues and concerns for those directly involved in biracial identity development. For the purposes of this article, it includes six families--Black/White interracially married parents and their biracial children (ranging between the ages of 5-16 years). Most of the families lived in an area with a high portion of interracial families and varied in terms of educational and economic status.

     The nine children participating in the study were all interviewed separately using semi-structured audiotaped interviews. At least one parent form each of the six families was also interviewed. The major themes that arose from these interviews for the parents include ethnic labeling, location of the family, and preparation of children for anticipated discrimination. Most of the parents felt that racially labeling their children was a difficult problem. These parents also felt that were they lived was an important issue and looked at the racial composition of the neighborhood and how open they felt the neighborhood was to interracial families. The third major issue that came up was about prejudice. In this area, there was a division with some families actively preparing their child for prejudice and other families trying to protect their child(ren) from exposure to these types of situations.

     The themes that arose from the interviews with the children often depended on the developmental age of the child. Major themes that arose include racial/ethnic labels, self-description, and racial awareness. When asked what they were the younger children responded according to their religious background, whereas the older children responded with racial labels. The younger children also used actual colors to describe themselves, such as tan or brown, as opposed to racial labels like "Black," "White," or "Mixed." When asked about social pressure to chose one racial identity the older children all recalled instances where they felt forced to chose or had no choice and were only allowed to be black. When asked to describe themselves the children all included skin color in their description of what they looked like. Although all of the children were aware of racial differences, there was a trend for greater awareness the older the child was. The 16-year-old said that the older he got the more racial cliques that formed at school.

             Created by Carrie Ferber and Kayoko Nakamura

Contact information: Katherine Rhoades, rhoadeka@uwec.edu