Evaluations of Interracial Peer Encounters by Majority and Minority U.S. Children and Adolescents.

U.S. majority (European-American) and minority (African-American, Latin-American, Asian-American) students were interviewed regarding race-based and non-race based reasons for exclusion in interracial peer dyads ( = 685), evenly divided by gender at 4, 7, and 10 grades attending 20 public schools. All students judged race-based exclusion as the most wrong followed by non-raced based reasons such as lack of shared interests, parental discomfort, and peer pressure. Minority students were more likely to judge non-race based exclusion as wrong than were majority students, and were more likely to expect that racial exclusion occurs, indicating that ethnic background and social experience are significantly related to interpretations of interracial peer dyadic reasons for exclusion.