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Little is known about how children and adolescents evaluate unequal teacher allocations of leadership duties based on ethnicity-race and gender in the classroom. U.S. boys and girls, White (40.7%), Multiracial (18.5%), Black/African American (16.0%), Latine (14.2%), Asian (5.5%), Pacific Islander (0.4%), and other (4.7%) ethnic-racial backgrounds, 8 - 14 years, N = 275, evaluated teacher allocations of high-status leadership positions favoring specific ethnic-racial or gender groups during 2018 - 2021. Adolescents, more than children, negatively evaluated unequal teacher allocations of leadership duties that resulted in group-based inequalities, expected peers who shared the identity of a group disadvantaged by the teacher’s allocation to view it more negatively than others, and rectified inequalities. Understanding perceptions of teacher-based bias provides an opportunity for interventions designed to create fair and just classrooms that motivate all students to achieve. 

Abstract Little is known about how children and adolescents evaluate unequal teacher allocations of leadership duties based on ethnicity‐race and gender in the classroom. U.S. boys and girls, White (40.7%), Multiracial (18.5%), Black/African American (16.0%), Latine (14.2%), Asian (5.5%), Pacific Islander (0.4%), and other (4.7%) ethnic‐racial backgrounds, 8–14 years,N = 275, evaluated teacher allocations of high‐status leadership positions favoring specific ethnic‐racial or gender groups during 2018–2021. Adolescents, more than children, negatively evaluated unequal teacher allocations of leadership duties that resulted in group‐based inequalities, expected peers who shared the identity of a group disadvantaged by the teacher's allocation to view it more negatively than others, and rectified inequalities. Understanding perceptions of teacher‐based bias provides an opportunity for interventions designed to create fair and just classrooms that motivate all students to achieve. 

The past generation has seen a dramatic rise in multiracial populations and a consequent increase in exposure to individuals who challenge monolithic racial categories. We examine and compare two potential outcomes of the multiracial population growth that may impact people’s racial categorization experience: (a) exposure to racially ambiguous faces that visually challenge the existing categories, and (b) a category that conceptually challenges existing categories (including “biracial” as an option in addition to the monolithic “Black” and “White” categories). Across four studies ( N = 1,810), we found that multiple exposures to faces that are racially ambiguous directly lower essentialist views of race. Moreover, we found that when people consider a category that blurs the line between racial categories (i.e., “biracial”), they become less certain in their racial categorization, which is associated with less race essentialism, as well. Importantly, we found that these two effects happen independently from one another and represent two distinct cognitive processes.