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Talking to Children About Race, Gender, and Social Issues: Review and Recommendations

Children notice group conflict and societal injustices. Educators and caregivers sometimes shield children from challenging social issues because they think that children cannot understand complex topics or because they think learning the information will be harmful. By avoiding such conversations, educators and caregivers are ignoring societal structures that privilege some groups over others. Children are aware of current events, social issues, and differences between people. They come to their own conclusions about the observed differences and differential treatment but without the tools to challenge biases and inequities. This brief reviews research on children’s developmental capacity to understand discrimination, with a focus on early-to-middle childhood and topics related to race, gender, and immigration status. Implications for policy and practice appear alongside recommendations, with a particular focus on the benefits to having these challenging conversations in schools.