Ebook: Racial Categorization of Multiracial Children in Schools

Multiracial students have unique needs that are not being met in schools, because teachers and school personnel assume that those needs are the same as those of monoracial minority children. Children of multiple races are, in fact, ''invisible'' in the schools. On school and federal forms, they are racially categorized based on ''one race only,'' and such categorizations are not limited to documents. Schools and teachers may unknowingly transmit monoracial identity messages to multiracial students, which is problematic for some students who may want to identify with more than one race. Our racial categorization process reflects the deficiencies of the concept of race in American culture and needs to be renegotiated.