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Language that uses noun labels and generic descriptions to discuss people who do science (e.g., “Let’s be scientists! Scientists discover new things”) signals to children that “scientists” is a distinctive category. This identity-focused language promotes essentialist beliefs and leads to disengagement from science among young children in experimental contexts. The extent to which these cues shape the development of children’s beliefs and behaviors in daily life, however, depends on (a) the availability of identity-focused language in children’s environments and (b) the power of these cues to shape beliefs over time, even in the noisier, more variable contexts in which children are exposed to them. Documenting the availability of this language, linguistic coding of children’s media (Study 1) and prekindergarten teachers’ language from one science lesson (Study 2; n = 103; 98 female, one male, four unknown; 66% White, 8% African American, 6% Asian/Asian American, 3% mixed/biracial; 21% of the sample, of any race, identified as Hispanic/Latinx) confirmed that identity-focused language was the most common form of science language in these two samples. Further, children (Study 3; n = 83; Mage = 4.36 years; 43 female, 40 male; 64% White, 12% Asian/Asian American, 24% mixed/biracial; 36% of the sample, of any race, identified as Hispanic/Latinx) who were exposed to lower proportions of identity-focused language from their teachers developed increasingly inclusive science beliefs and greater science engagement over time. These findings suggest that linguistic input is an important mechanism through which exclusive beliefs about science are conveyed to children in daily life.
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This content will become publicly available on February 1, 2026
Do young American children essentialize ethnicity? Examining inductive inferences about Hispanic/Latinx individuals in an ethnically diverse sample
Hispanic and Latinx individuals represent one of the largest and fastest growing ethnic groups in the United States. Yet research has not investigated whether young children hold essentialist beliefs about this prevalent social category. The present study addressed this issue by examining whether children used this ethnic category to make inductive inferences about novel individuals, one dimension of essentialism. A total of 108 children, 5 to 7 years of age (54 female; 56 Hispanic, 46 non‐Hispanic), completed a forced‐choice inference task. Children did not expect members of the same ethnic group to share properties, and this did not vary with their own ethnic group membership. This suggests that in the US, the belief that ethnicity is causally informative undergoes a protracted developmental trajectory, as has been observed for essentialist beliefs about race.
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- Award ID(s):
- 2123282
- PAR ID:
- 10630376
- Publisher / Repository:
- Wiley
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Social Development
- Volume:
- 34
- Issue:
- 1
- ISSN:
- 0961-205X
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- e12775
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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