ABSTRACT
This chapter presents the most important influences on white children's ideas about 'race'. In addition to the school, the most important sources are parents, the community, and television. It is a common idea among teachers that children who make racist remarks are simply imitating their parents. Some children's parents had clearly anti-racist views, which were shared by their children. Television was one of the white children's most important sources of information, ideas and values about issues of 'race'. Many children were aware of the existence of racist attacks on black people through television. Television is also a powerful source of ideas about black people in the Third World. Local Asian-run shops are an important social site in terms of 'race'. There are several ethnographic studies that have focused on the ways that themes of racism and anti-racism may coexist within the same sub-cultural configuration, and consequently may coexist, contradictorily, in white discourse and consciousness.
