Finding #3: Mindsets are shared across demographic groups, but there are also important differences between groups.

Knowing how mindsets differ in strength between demographic groups can inform communications and audience strategy.  

Family Bubble, Passive Development and Individualism are strongly endorsed across demographic groups. This is consistent with our previous research and shows the strength of these mindsets in shaping public thinking about the early years. However, strong does not mean immovable. Dominant mindsets may be hard to shift and take time to move, but consistent framing and disciplined narrative strategy can push these mindsets to the background while activating and strengthening more productive ones.

It Takes a Village, Structural Racism, Otherism and Racial Progress vary in strength across demographic groups. The variation in endorsement of these mindsets suggests that these are not settled or uniformly held ways of making sense of the early years; instead, they are areas where different people are being pulled in different interpretive directions. This contestation suggests that these mindsets may be especially important leverage points for communications and engagement efforts because they mark places where understandings are still in flux rather than firmly entrenched across the population. At the same time, the uneven distribution of these mindsets suggests the value of targeting interventions towards groups that are more strongly oriented towards unproductive ways of thinking, where there may be the greatest need — and opportunity — for movement. Conversely, groups that are already more productively situated in terms of mindset strength may require less intensive effort, allowing resources to be focused where they can have the most impact.