Researching race-ethnicity in race-mute Europe

In Germany and continental Europe, more broadly, race and ethnicity are concepts that are not widely used and are increasingly erased from the legislation. Nevertheless, race and ethnicity are still used as social markers and often merely replaced with other terms (e.g., cultural background). The goal of this paper is threefold. First, we point to the danger of treating race and ethnicity as essentialist categories, which is still common in developmental science research. Second, we want to outline specific problems that occur when doing research on ethnicity and race with children and adolescents in the European race-mute context. Third, we suggest that future research ought to focus more on constructions of Whiteness and reproduction of power differences among ethnic majority populations. In doing so, we draw on examples from our own research on ethnic-racial identity and ethnic-racial socialization.