Mamie Phipps Clark
American child psychologist and founder of the Northside Center
American psychologist who studied the development of racial identity in Black children, co-conducted the doll studies with Kenneth Clark, and founded the Northside Center for Child Development in Harlem.
Why this person matters
Mamie Clark's master's thesis on Black preschool children's consciousness of self started the doll research that became evidence in the school segregation cases. She directed the Northside Center in Harlem from 1946 until she retired in 1979.
Main contributions
Research on racial identity in children
Her Howard University master's thesis, The Development of Consciousness of Self in Negro Pre-School Children, asked when Black children recognise themselves as individuals and as members of a racial group. She concluded that they became aware of race, probably by age 4 or 5, a premise for the doll studies.
Doll test
The Clarks' 1947 report described over 250 Black children aged 3 to 7 choosing among four dolls that differed in skin and hair colour: 134 in segregated Arkansas schools and 119 in mixed Massachusetts schools. By age 7, 87 per cent said the brown doll looked like them and 67 per cent wanted to play with the white doll.
Northside Center
She opened the centre in Harlem in February 1946 because minority children in New York City lacked services. It added educational programmes for children and parents within a couple of years, and she directed it until 1979.
Context and limits
Her doctoral sponsor Henry Garrett was an open racist, and she later confronted him under oath in a court case in which he testified that Black children were mentally inferior. Garrett and other critics argued that the doll tests were biased and the sample too small, and Robin Bernstein offered a different reading of children's choices. The Clarks themselves argued that integration would help children of both races develop healthy racial identities.
In your introductory course
Culture and diversity.She appears in development and culture chapters for the doll studies and for how psychology entered the school desegregation cases.
Related course reading: Psychology 2e, section 1.2. This is course context rather than a biographical source.
Years of active work
- 1938
She earned her BA from Howard University.
- 1943
She received her PhD from Columbia University, the first Black woman to earn a psychology doctorate there.
- 1946
She opened the Northside Center in Harlem.
- 1947
She and Kenneth Clark reported the doll test results.
Sources
- Psychology's Feminist Voices, Mamie Phipps ClarkArchive or museum. Institutional biography inspected.
- Education Week, Kenneth B. Clark, scholar on race, dies at 90 (2005)Publisher. Text passages inspected.
- Wikipedia, Kenneth Bancroft ClarkReference work. Reference article inspected.