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Interracial Families and the Racial Identification of Mixed-Race Children: Evidence from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study
- Social Forces
- The University of North Carolina Press
- Volume 84, Number 2, December 2005
- pp. 1131-1157
- 10.1353/sof.2006.0007
- Article
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In this article, a nationally-representative sample of kindergarten-aged children is used from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study to explore the structure of parental racial designation of mixed-race children. The variation in these parental designations of a variety of mixed-race children is described. Parental racial designations in the three most common majority-minority interracial couplings – White/Hispanic, Black/White and Asian/White – are predicted using multinomial logistic regression models. The results may indicate a movement by the parents of these multiracial children away from minority status through racial labeling and towards "multiracial" and "White" – movements that are predicated upon gender, class and context. Critical discussions of the implications of these results as well as directions for future research are offered.