Psychology
in
the
Schools
Volume
19,
Ocrober.
1982
HARD BATTLES AHEAD:
A NOTE ON THE FUTURE PERSPECTIVES OF MINORITY CHILDREN
DEBORAH
A.
BYRNES
New
Mexico State University
As
a by-product of a descriptive study of the invisible children in the classroom, a
rather surprising observation is noted on the future perspectives of minority children.
When
26
of these forgotten children, as well as their
26
popular peers, selected
sociometrically from
383
third through sixth graders, were intensively studied, self-
anchoring scales revealed an unexpected reversal in the comparison
of
their future
perspectives, the popular children scoring significantly lower than the invisible ones. A
closer examination showed that minority children in the popular group recorded a
much lower mean rating for the future than the rest, in sharp contrast with the
minorities
in
the invisible group. By their own admission, the popular minority
children were anticipating a tougher life and harder battles ahead.
This note reports on an interesting future perspective of popular minority children,
which emerged
in
a descriptive study of a subgroup of social isolates, here labeled “invisi-
ble children.”
The study itself focussed on 26 invisible
or
socially forgotten children (13 boys and
13 girls) and their comparison group of 26 popular children
(13
boys and 13 girls), iden-
tified on a sociometric instrument. They were administered several measures of personal-
social characteristics, observed in the classroom, and interviewed individually. Further,
their school records were consulted, and their teachers, as well as parents, were inter-
viewed
in
an effort to grasp the life space of the invisible ones (Byrnes, 1981).
All the children were from two elementary schools in a community on the outskirts
of
a
Southwestern metropolis. Grades three through six were represented,
or
a total of
383 children
in
13 classrooms. Both schools were
in
the same district, with diverse
economic and ethnic populations, drawing students from rural, suburban, and urban
areas of the community. There were seven minority children in the popular group, and
nine in the invisible group-Hispanics, Blacks, Indians, and one Thai.
Sew-
Descriptions
As one source of self-descriptive data, each of the invisible and popular children was
administered a self-anchoring scale on the
ideal
and
worst
persons. Self-anchoring scal-
ing was developed by Kilpatrick and Cantril(l965) as a direct outgrowth
of
the transac-
tional theory of human behavior. That is to say, each one of
us
has his/her own unique
perceptions, goals, and values, and these must be taken into account when trying to un-
derstand humans and their actions.
On a self-anchoring scale, a respondent is asked to describe
in
terms of his/her own
words the top and bottom anchoring points of a particular scaling dimension. After es-
tablishing these points of reference, the self-defined continuum is used for exploring the
individual’s world. The numerical scores gathered from this type of instrument are con-
sidered directly comparable from person to person, because the levels chosen are
psy-
chologically
equivalent (Kilpatrick
&
Cantril,
1965,
p.521).
In the present study, the children characterized the very best person they could think
of, and also the very worst person. Verbatim records were made directly onto a sheet of
paper that pictured a 10-point ladder scale. The ideal
or
best person description was
Requests
for
reprints should be sent to Deborah A. Byrnes, Dept.
of
Educational Specialties, New Mexico
State University, Box 3AC, Las Cruces, NM
88003.
513
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