Minority children’s perception of raceA child-centered ethnographic approach

Abstract

This doctoral thesis examines young minority children’s perception of race in relation to other socially constructed concepts, ethnicity, culture, and nationality. All these historically and socially crucial concepts and children’s perspective are explored from an ethnographic perspective in an NGO, which includes participant observation, a doll study, and childcentered activities as well as a focus group discussion with the staff of the NGO. By using triangulation methodology, the study tries to cover the subject, race, from different aspects and in different contexts in the daily lives of children of minority origin. Accordingly, based on the collected data through various complementary methods in various contexts, the study suggests that children of minority origin have a very complex way of constructing race, ethnicity, culture, and nationality in terms of both physical and cultural traits.