Multiracial Students in K–12 Schools

Classification of Multiracial Students

The word multiracial denotes a person whose genetic heritage includes three or more races within the past two generations. Although a person who is biracial—having a heritage that includes two races—may experience identity development and racial identification differently than a person who is “multiracial,” meaning three or more races, the term multiracial is used in this entry to describe both biracial and multiracial people except when it is important to distinguish between the two identities. When examining multiracial identity, it is important not to conflate all multiracial identity. There are many possible racial mixes, each of which can be perceived differently by society. Likewise, each racially mixed person has a unique phenotype that contributes to that person's life experience, in part based on how her or his physical appearance is responded to by society. Further, mixed-race identity can be perceived and addressed differently in various parts of the United States. For example, a multiracial person in Hawaii might have a very different experience with his or her identity than a biracial person in a state with a smaller multiracial population where his or her identity is perceived as outside of the norm.

The 2000 Census was the first time that U.S. citizens could report being “more than one race”—2.4% of the U.S. population chose this option in 2000. In the 2010 census, 9 million people, 2.9% of the total population, reported being more than one race. This group was one of the fastest-growing racial groups during the decade between 2000 and 2010. The multiracial community is disproportionately young: 47.4% of multiracial people are under the age of 18. Further, almost 71.6% of the multiracial population is under the age of 35. While there are mixed-race people living throughout the United States, they are not distributed equally. The states with the highest reported rates of multiracial identity are located in the western United States. In Hawaii, 23.6% of people reported multiracial identity, in Alaska 7.3%, in California 4.9%, and in Oklahoma, 5.9% of the state population reported multiracial identity in the 2010 census.

The demographics of the multiracial population indicate that a significant number of multiracial youth are currently students in U.S. schools and that this segment of the school population will continue to grow rapidly. Little is known about the experiences and perceptions of multiracial students, however. While an understanding of multiracial identity may be especially pressing in western states due to the concentration of multiracial students in that region, racial mixing is a fact of U.S. society, as demonstrated by the 2010 census.

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