LAWRENCE — New research from the University of Kansas has found that most parents recall watching media with diverse racial and ethnic portrayals of characters with their children and that their own racial-ethnic identity predicted their attitudes toward such content, but not necessarily their beliefs.
Judy Watts, assistant professor of journalism & mass communications at KU, led a study in which 367 Black, Latinx and white parents of children ages 4-7 were surveyed about media they've consumed with their kids. Two-thirds of respondents recalled consuming media such as television, movies, video games or books with portrayals of diverse characters and those of races different than their own.
"I was interested in seeing what led some parents in selecting what racially and ethnically diverse media to watch with their children," Watts said. "My previous research was more conceptually focused on things kids learn in school or media effects over the lifespan. Childhood is an important time to learn about ourselves and others who may be different from ourselves."
For the study, parents were asked to identify their race, ethnicity and that of their children. The Black, white and Latinx parents were also asked about their attitudes about media representations of race, such as if portrayals they recalled were helpful or not to determine attitudes about such media. They were also asked about ethnic/racial identity with questions such about how strongly they feel they belong with people who share their race and/or ethnicity.
Findings showed that Black and Latinx parents differed significantly on racial/ethnic identity than white parents, but not from each other, with both reporting higher levels of racial identity. That held consistent with previous research on ethnic/racial identity. The parents were also asked about the type of content featuring racial/ethnic depictions they recalled consuming with their children, how diverse the characters were and what sort of situations they were depicted in.
"Seeing what types of content families watched was very intriguing. Black families tended to watch content featuring members of their race. That is possibly because that type of diverse content wasn't always as readily available as it is now," Watts said. "Latinx families watched a lot of content featuring characters of their own race/ethnicity, but also with mixed characters. That could speak to things like assimilation into culture."
The research was tested on themes of social identity gratification and multicultural theories. The former holds that people prefer to consume depictions of people similar to themselves, while the latter holds that people who have a strong racial/ethnic identity are favorable to depictions of other races and ethnicities as well. Each theory was partially supported by findings that ultimately, parents are open to diverse content for their children and their attitudes toward racially and ethnically diverse media portrayals are more open than previous research has indicated.
"This research shows that parents want to show their children diverse content that reflects their own racial/ethnic identities and that they're open to diverse content as well," Watts said. "It shows parents are supportive of diversity in content of media their children consume. Parents have various socialization goals for their children. They want to help them learn about their own identities and expose them to others. I think it shows it's not a dichotomous decision or that it has to be one or the other."
The study was supported by a research cultivation grant from the National Research Communication Association and was published in the journal Communication Research Reports.
Watts, who conducts research into media effects and influences, said the study's results show parents have varying goals for using media to help their children learn about themselves as well as their identities. She is conducting follow-up research examining explicit and implicit portrayals of racial interactions in children's media. Specifically, she is comparing portrayals including anthropomorphized animals and human characters and their use of racial characteristics to analyze if children understand such racial cues, which characters they liked and to which they assign morality.
The current study showed that nearly two-thirds of parents recalled seeing racially and ethnically diverse portrayals of characters with their children, often in positive contexts, such as characters with differing backgrounds being friends.
"I think this suggests that parents are open to and seeking racially and ethnically diverse content and having more diverse content available in children's media in recent decades has been helpful," Watts said. "It also helps us understand parents' motivations in media they choose for their kids."
