Skin Color Values in Three All-Negro School Classes

Abstract

RECENT studies of the American Negro ~ have stressed the significance of the I. 1. value pattern in which lightness of skin is a desideratum. The widespread and penetrating character of the color influence is suggested by Myrdal's comment that cliques, clubs and social life in general seem to be permeated by this color preference.' The majority of these studies, however, have been done with adolescents or adults, and we thus get only a recall of the meaning of skin color in earlier childhood, a recall overlaid, no doubt, with the rationalizations and frustrations of the intervening years. The work reported here focuses upon skin color discriminations as they operate in exclusively Negro child groupings. It presents direct evidence regarding the importance of skin color to the pre-adolescent Negro, and thus furnishes insights into the operation of child value systems. Standard sociometric and interview techniques were used to explore the following hypotheses: first, that children in all-Negro grade school classes have incorporated into their value system the color preferences of the adult Negro community2; and second, that skin color is operative as a socially differentiating factor at this age level. A total of 8 i children in three all-Negro classes were tested. Two of the classes (X and Y) were combined 3rd and 4th grades, while the third (Class Z) was a combined 5th and 6th grade group, in the same school as Class Y. Table i contains a breakdown