This essay, an attempt to trace the roots of prejudice, addresses such questions as: What is prejudice? Is it a unitary construct? Are the terms 'prejudice', 'segregation', 'discrimination' synonomous? Is prejudice innate or acquired? Is there a 'prejudiced personality-type', or is anyone capable of becoming prejudiced? Are prejudiced people more, or less, maladjusted than non-prejudiced ones? Why do some men have dark skin, and what natural function can dark skin possibly have, and so on? Seeking answers to these and other questions leads to the primary concern: the source of racial prejudice. In what layer of man's self are to be found the roots of his prejudice toward his fellow men? The approach is essentially inductive, beginning with the particular--man as a biological unit--and proceeding to the general--man as a societal abstraction. The book--Racial Awareness in Young Children--reports, in non-technical language, a study which was begun in 1943 and concluded in 1948. It may be viewed as an important bridge between those studies which were primarily seeking an understanding of the development of racial prejudice, and those which were concerned with the personality concomitant of racial prejudice. The author's (Dr. Goodman's) focus, though ostensibly eclectic, is basically that of the cultural anthropologist. Through a series of intensive case studies, Dr. Goodman investigates the complex process underlying intergenerational persistence of the culturally predominant pattern of "White" over "Black." (Author/JM)