Penn State will fund research on ‘Raising Antiracist Kids,' including infants
Program events include sessions for age groups as young as 0-4
Penn State is issuing a grant to a research project called “Raising Antiracist Kids,” which will promote “antiracist behavior, attitudes, norms and beliefs among parents.”
Penn State announced the first awardees for its new antiracism grant; among the winners is a research project that will look into making a “Raising Antiracist Kids” curriculum.
Penn State’s Prevention Research Center granted four graduate student projects funding to help forward their anti-racism work.
PRC Associate Director Greg Fosco stated that “The PRC seeks to address long-standing health inequities through research and implementation of effective programs.” He expects that these projects will play a role in “addressing systemic racism in a variety of environments.”
[RELATED: BU prof, ‘antiracist’ activist wants to remove ‘not racist’ from vocabulary]
Graduate student Keiana Mayfield received a grant for her project called “Raising Antiracist Kids,” an online parenting program that will promote “antiracist behavior, attitudes, norms and beliefs among parents.”
The project also aims for the “development of scales to measure anti-racist socialization practices and anti-racism parenting self-efficacy, which could inform future research.”
Eventbrite listings for Raising Antiracist Kids workshops include sessions for age groups 0-4, 5-11, and 12+.
“Talking to your kids and teens about literally anything can be awkward,” read the event descriptions. “Luckily, teaching your kids and teens about antiracism doesn’t have to be any more awkward than other conversations.”
[RELATED: Prof explains how to talk to White children about racism]
Another project in receipt of the grant will study “color-evasiveness” — defined as “pretending that racism no longer exists” — in online undergraduate education.
This project has hopes of “informing policies and practices that will reduce racism experienced by online students.”
Penn State College Republicans treasurer Michael Hunter told Campus Reform that “research into racism isn’t necessarily bad as long as it’s going towards something useful.”
He added that “a lot of antiracist work like White Fragility doesn’t have much of a use beyond earning money for the people studying it.”
Campus Reform reached out to Penn State and will update this article accordingly.
Follow the author of this article on Twitter: @BenZeisloft
