Report Publish Date: December 2022

This journal article describes the impact of racism on the early development of Black children and others from racial and ethnic minority groups. It suggests the need for a new body of work that uses a framework called the Racism + Resilience + Resistance Integrative Study of Childhood Ecosystem (R3ISE) to better understand how racism and families’ and communities’ cultural assets affect early childhood development.

Primary Takeaways

“Racism is multidimensional, and it operates on various levels and can set the foundation of child health and adult development in complex ways,” the authors write. They describe various types of racism scholars have defined, including individual or interpersonal racism, structural or systemic or institutional racism, internalized racism, second-hand racism, everyday racism, and cyber racism.

Racism affects children’s health, development, and learning through several mechanisms, including economic stability and security, the neighborhoods and communities in which children live, their birth outcomes, and education.

The authors say using the R3ISE model helps researchers “identify the interplay between racism and family and community cultural assets” and analyze how different levels of racism hinder childhood development, depending on children’s gender, age, sex, and health.
 

Overview and Objectives

“Our ultimate goal is to stimulate a developmental science that is antiracist at its core, equity-centered, and culturally grounded in its approach,” the authors write.
 

Hypothesis or Approach 

The authors describe “the multiple forms through which racism affects children's health, development, and learning and the costs of racism on society.” 

They also explain the R³ISE model and present policies that could protect children from the effects of racism and discrimination.
 

How This Influences Change

“Luckily, there are ways to mitigate the effects of racism on REM [racially and ethnically minoritized] children's outcomes, and these include informing and improving policies that focus on economic security and mobility, safe and affordable housing, prenatal care and child health, and access to early intervention and quality education,” the authors write. “We implore researchers, educators, and policymakers to use the R3ISE integrative model to continue examining ways to improve and protect the well-being of REM children and work collaboratively to advance racial equity and dismantle systems that have prevented the full participation of REM children and their families in society.”