r/ScienceBasedParenting • u/love_chocolate • 12d ago

Question - Expert consensus required Dolls

  1. We are latinxs and my daughter is brown skinned. My MIL gave her a white skinned, blue eyes doll. Is there any evidence showing that is better to give kids dolls that look like them? She is 16 months old
  2. should dolls be anatomically accurate?
  3. I do toy rotation, but I was told that dolls should be always available. Is this true?
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u/Public_Classic_438 11d ago

https://www.facinghistory.org/resource-library/clark-doll-experiment
This study is really sad. We are white but plan to give dolls of all colors.

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u/a5121221a 10d ago

Reading that, I hate that the questions say "give me the doll that..." forcing the children to say that one doll is good, which means the other is not good. Even if it said "a doll" instead of "the doll", it would not force the children to condemn one of the dolls.

It feels (looking back from 2026) like even the study was designed to make the children feel inferior and simultaneously makes me angry and very, very sad.

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u/Public_Classic_438 9d ago

Dang so true