The Construction of Racial Identity in Children of Mixed Parentage

Ilan Katz received his degree in social work at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg in 1978. After qualifying he came to the UK and has worked as a social worker and social work manager in local authorities and voluntary organisations. His main professional interests have been with children and people with learning disabilities. His current post is as National Evaluation Officer for the NSPCC, where he is involved with several projects evaluating child protection practice and has a part-time secondment to the Brunel University CEPPP. In 1994 he received his doctorate on The Development of Racial Identity in Infants of Mixed Parentage from Brunel University.

For several decades the issues of race, identity and child development have been of major concern to policy makers and practitioners in social services. This book is a major contribution to this literature, and offers a radically new way of looking at some of these issues. Based on intensive research on inter-racial families with young children, the book reviews the previous literature relating to racial identity development, especially relating to children of mixed parentage, and shows much of it to be based on flawed assumptions. Using intensive observations and in-depth interviews with parents of children of mixed parentage the author shows the author shows the many ways in which inter-racial families deal with issues of identity and difference. He concludes with a discussion of alternative conceptions of identity, race and development which will provide both practitioners and policy makers with new ways to think about these issues.

Chapter 1, Introduction. Chapter 2, The Interracial Debate. Chapter 3, Racial Attitudes and Marginality. Chapter 4, Theories of Identity Development. Chapter 5, Methodology. Chapter 6, The A Family. Chapter 7, The B Family. Chapter 8, The First Set of Interviews. Chapter 9, Second Set of Interviews. Chapter 10, Conclusions. Chapter 11, Revisiting the Theory. Appendix One: Mother's Interviews. Appendix Two: Interview Transcript.