The Nature and Consequences of Essentialist Beliefs About Race in Early Childhood

It is widely believed that race divides the world into biologically distinct kinds of people—an essentialist belief inconsistent with reality. Essentialist views of race have been described as early emerging, but this study found that young children (n = 203, M_age = 5.45) hold only the more limited belief that the physical feature of skin color is inherited and stable. Overall, children rejected the causal essentialist view that behavioral and psychological characteristics are constrained by an inherited racial essence. Although average levels of children's causal essentialist beliefs about race were low, variation in these beliefs was related to children's own group membership, exposure to diversity, as well as children's own social attitudes.     

Family Medicine editors collaborate towards antiracist publishing

• Editors of 10 North American Family Medicine journals simultaneously published a Joint Call for Action to address systemic racism and encourage diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility/antiracism (DEIA) initiatives in medicine and medical publishing in January 2021.
• The efforts of the journals since publication of the joint editorial are summarized and include working to diversify editorial teams, editorial boards and authors; enhanced content about DEIA topics; mentoring of authors who are underrepresented in medicine (URM); and presenting content related to DEIA in Family Medicine publishing at national meetings.
• Editors had a follow up meeting in November 2022 to continue working toward a common goal of reducing racism and increasing DEIA initiatives in Family Medicine publications.