Racial Socialization Processes Research Articles

Racial Socialization in the United States.

Our review, situated within the context of the United States, explores how societal forces shape youths' racial socialization processes. Specifically, we explore how youths learn beliefs about race through interactions with their environment, how these processes affect youths' engagement with race in multiple contexts, and how they contribute to the perpetuation and dismantling of racial inequality. First, we discuss key psychological theories that inform our understanding of racial socialization. Second, we discuss how families, peers, media, and environmental cues shape racial socialization processes. Finally, we discuss interventions to enhance racial socialization and offer directions for future psychological research to advance our understanding of both racial and broader socialization processes in the United States and internationally.

Cascading effects of Chinese American parents' COVID-19 racial discrimination and racial socialization on adolescents' adjustment.

Using a three-wave longitudinal sample of 108 Chinese American parent-adolescent dyads (Mparent-ageW1 = 45.44 years, 17% fathers; Madolescent-ageW1 = 13.34 years, 50% boys), this study examined the effects of parents' COVID-19-related racial discrimination experiences on adolescents' ethnic identity exploration and anxiety as mediated by parents' awareness of discrimination (AOD) socialization and moderated by parents' anxiety and racial socialization competency (RSC). Parents' racial discrimination experiences in 2020 predicted adolescents' greater ethnic identity exploration or greater anxiety in 2022 via parents' greater use of AOD in 2021, depending on the levels of parents' anxiety and RSC. These findings highlighted individual and contextual factors impacting racial socialization processes in Chinese American families.

What Do White Parents Teach Youth About Race? Qualitative Examination of White Racial Socialization.

Research has examined racial socialization practices within families of color, but less is known regarding what White parents teach their children about race and/or racism. To explore White racial socialization processes, we interviewed 30 White parents of White children ages 7–17 years living in the Midwest. Using thematic analysis, we identified 22 themes organized into four domains: Content of conversations, factors to consider in socialization, developmental differences, and White identity/privilege. A majority of parents reported conversations about current or historic racial events, while relatively few also reported speaking specifically about systemic racism and microaggressions. Parents viewed adolescents as better able to handle difficult topics than children. Findings contribute to theoretical frameworks and may inform the development of educational resources.

Not the Same Old Song and Dance: Viewing Racial Socialization Through a Family Systems Lens to Resist Racial Trauma.

Racial socialization has been a mainstay within the psychological literature for the past four decades, touted primarily as a protective factor buffering the negative effects of racism. How effective this factor is in preventing behavioral and emotional trauma and promoting resilience for Black and Brown families remains to be studied. While the literature has focused on family communication between parent and child, little attention has been paid to familial dynamics inherent within racial socialization processes. This paper seeks to advance the conversation of racial socialization as The Talk toward one that holds more promise toward the goal of resilience in the face of systemic racism. To do so, we offer a reframe of The Dance, drawing upon key aspects from the family- and multisystem-focused literatures (e.g., synergy, homeostasis, feedback, metacommunication) to expand and justify the utility, complexity, and efficacy of racial socialization among Black and Brown families as a resilient response to historical and contemporary systemic racism in American society. We include methodological and applied recommendations to promote resilience, resistance, and ultimately healing in the face of racial adversity and trauma.

Differentiating competency from content: Parental racial socialization profiles and their associated factors.

For Black parents, the racial socialization (RS) process represents a critical parenting practice. Although the field has historically focused on the content of parents' RS, it is also important to consider caregivers' perception of their competence to effectively teach their children to navigate their racialized world. The present study investigated patterns of RS by exploring 332 Black caregivers' report of both content and competency. Using Latent Profile Analysis (LPA), we identified three profiles of RS: Multifaceted & More Competent (MMC), Unengaged & Moderately Competent (UModC), and Negative, Stressed, & Less Competent (NSLC). Additionally, we explored the role of several previously established correlates of parental RS, including sociodemographic factors (i.e., age, gender, and socioeconomic status), caregiving status (e.g., mother, father, and aunt), and parents' race-related experiences (i.e., history of RS, racial identity, and experiences with racial discrimination). Generally, the NSLC profile consisted of caregivers who were younger than those in the other two profiles, while those in the UModC profile tended to have younger children, relatively. Interestingly, caregivers in the UmodC profile reported receiving significantly less RS in childhood and experienced less racial discrimination than those in the other two profiles. Numerous differences were found across profiles for dimensions of racial identity. The emergence of these varied profiles, as well as the identification of factors that differentiated them, extends our understanding of RS and highlights the importance of considering parents' notions of feeling confident, skillful, and less stressed as they navigate such a vital developmental process for their children.

Unpacking complexities in ethnic-racial socialization in transracial adoptive families: A process-oriented transactional system.

Over 50% of adoptions are transracial, involving primarily White parents and children of color from different ethnic or racial backgrounds. Transracial adoptive (TRA) parents are tasked with providing ethnic-racial socialization processes (ERS) to support TRA adoptees' ethnic-racial identity development and prepare them to cope with ethnic-racial discrimination. However, unlike nonadoptive families of color, TRA parents lack shared cultural history with adoptees and have limited experience navigating racial discrimination. Knowledge of ERS among TRA families has centered on unidirectional processes between parenting constructs, ERS processes, and children's functioning. However, ERS processes in this population have complexities and nuances that warrant more sensitive and robust conceptualization. This paper proposes a process-oriented dynamic ecological model of the system of ERS, situating transacting processes in and across multiple family levels (parent, adoptee, family) and incorporating developmental and contextual considerations. With its framing of the complexities in ERS among TRA families, the model offers three contributions: a conceptual organization of parenting constructs related to ERS, a more robust understanding of ERS processes that inform how parents provide ERS, and framing of transacting processes within and between parenting constructs, ERS processes, and children's functioning. Implications for research, policy, and practice are discussed.

Examining the continuum of Black student leadership: From community to college and beyond

This qualitative comparative case study examines the leadership involvement of 11 Black collegians and how they make sense of enacting transgenerationally informed knowledge(s) as racial socialization to navigate a predominantly White institution (PWI) campus. Findings indicated participants used elder communal instruction and parental home pedagogy to inform what it means to be leaders who enact social justice while Black. Emergent themes were: 1) Collective Definition; and 2) Self-sacrifice. Participants indicated parents and elders racially socialized them to be self-sacrificing leaders who used values, respect, and honor to preserve Black culture, people, and traditions. Racial socialization processes influenced students to become leaders who built and sustained Black college communities by being resilient. Participants acknowledged that although resiliency was important there was added value in practicing racial resistance, which allowed for exposing racially threatening oppositions and identify acts of racism that were menacing.

The Black Lives Matter Movement: A Call to Action for Couple and Family Therapists.

The frequent police killings during the COVID-19 pandemic forced a reckoning among Americans from all backgrounds and propelled the Black Lives Matter movement into a global force. This manuscript addresses major issues to aid practitioners in the effective treatment of African Americans via the lens of Critical Race Theory and the Bioecological Model. We place the impacts of racism on Black families in historical context and outline the sources of Black family resilience. We critique structural racism embedded in all aspects of psychology and allied fields. We provide an overview of racial socialization and related issues affecting the parenting decisions in Black families, as well as a detailed overview of impacts of structural racism on couple dynamics. Recommendations are made for engaging racial issues in therapy, providing emotional support and validation to couples and families experiencing discrimination and racial trauma, and using Black cultural strengths as therapeutic resources.

Examining changes in African American mothers' racial socialization patterns during adolescence: Racial discrimination as a predictor.

Racial socialization is a culturally relevant parenting strategy known to combat the detrimental consequences of racial discrimination for African American youth. Three limitations hinder our developmental understanding of the racial socialization process. Few studies have accounted for the combination of messages that primary caregivers convey, examined how these messages change over time, or investigated how caregivers and adolescents experiences with racial discrimination predict change in the combination of messages conveyed. Given that African American mothers are often the primary socializers in families, the current study used data from a community sample of 497 African American adolescents (52% Female; Time 1 Mage = 15.69; Time 2 Mage = 18.74) and their mothers (Time 1 Mage = 40.43; Time 2 Mage = 43.39) to identify patterns in mothers' racial socialization messages, identify how mothers' racial socialization patterns change from middle to late adolescence, and investigate whether mother- and adolescent-reported racial discrimination contribute to changes in mothers' racial socialization patterns. Latent profile analysis and latent transition analysis were used to examine these questions. Findings revealed three racial socialization patterns: balanced socializers who mistrust, cultural socialization and preparation for bias emphasizers, and low racial socializers. Most mothers were in the low racial socializers group, and most provided similar messages in middle and late adolescence. Mothers' reports of their own racial discrimination influenced the racial socialization messages mothers delivered; however, adolescent-reported racial discrimination did not. These results have implications for community-based interventions designed to help families manage racial discrimination. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Socializing Singlehood: Personal, Interpersonal, and Sociocultural Factors Shaping Black Women’s Single Lives

Popular discourse characterizes single Black women as desperate and dysfunctional, constructions of single status that reinforce broader stereotypes of Black women. Unfortunately, relatively little is known about how Black women define singlehood for themselves. The relative omission of Black women’s self-defined experiences of unmarried life from research is a gap that limits scholarly understandings of singlehood and Black women’s lives. To address this gap, 24 semi-structured interviews were conducted with single, cisgender, heterosexual Black women aged 25–46 years from diverse educational and marital history backgrounds. Thematic analysis yielded nine themes across sociocultural (complex portrayals and liberation), interpersonal (advice, support, and judgment), and personal (purpose, security, freedom, and frustration) life domains. Participants enacted a range of strategies in unmarried life including strategic singlehood, the intentional practice of maintaining single status to foster growth, maintain freedom, or ensure safety. Differences in singlehood were observed by maternal status, age, and marital history. Findings suggest singlehood is socialized through scripting and gendered racial socialization processes. Media featuring single Black women, advice and judgments from family, and shifting gender roles for women contributed to single socialization processes. Study findings suggest new directions for practice, research, and policy. Online slides for instructors who want to use this article for teaching are available on PWQ's website at http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/suppl/10.1177/0361684320939070

Beyond what, to how: Different ways African American adolescents receive ethnic and racial socialization messages.

Modes of transmission (MOT) of message content reveal nuances about how ethnic socialization and racial socialization occur. This study shifts the focus beyond "what" messages adolescents receive from caregivers to include "how" messages are communicated about ethnicity and race. African American adolescents (N = 55, 72% female, Mage = 16.8) participated in semistructured interviews that were analyzed with theory-driven content analysis and quantitative procedures to derive patterns from the data. Various forms of verbal and nonverbal MOT were discussed by adolescents. Two patterns of associations between MOT and message content were found: Ethnic content was conveyed more often through nonverbal MOT, whereas racial content occurred more often through verbal MOT. These patterns were revealed at both the response and individual levels. This study links the expression aspect of MOT with ethnic and racial content in interviews that highlight teenagers' voices about how verbal and nonverbal messages about ethnicity and race are received. Further research that examines MOT in relation to message content will provide fuller awareness of ethnic and racial socialization processes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Unpacking the Theory of African American Offending: A Qualitative Exploration of Racial Socialization Processes and Their Effects on African American Male College Students

In 2011, Dr. James Unnever and Dr. Shaun Gabbidon introduced a Theory of African American Offending, which posits that African American offending is motivated in part by common experiences of racism. They argue that these experiences contribute to a shared worldview that includes both an accumulation of bad feelings toward pro-social institutions and legal cynicism toward the justice system, leading to decreased social bonds and a greater predilection toward delinquency. They also suggest that racial socialization can help to mitigate these effects of racism. Previous studies have found support for this idea, but few have examined the mechanisms by which racial socialization takes place. The current study uses qualitative interviews to explore the racial socialization process among a sample of Black male college students in a Midwestern public university. The findings reveal that racial socialization processes vary widely among male college students in terms of content (police contact, dating, safety), sources (parents, grandparents, peers, and other adult role models), timing, and the effect on social bonds to White-dominated institutions. Implications of the findings for the research on race, racial socialization, social problems, and criminological theory are presented and discussed.

Racial Ideology and White Youth: From Middle Childhood to Adolescence

The author explores how white youth interpret and produce racial ideologies in the United States from middle childhood (ages 10–13) to adolescence (ages 14–17). In Wave 1, interviews and ethnographic observations were conducted with 36 child participants living in three distinct “racial contexts of childhood” or racialized social environments. Four years later, in Wave 2, interviews were conducted with a subset of the initial youth participants. Findings show that as these young people became older, they became more confident and committed to their ideological positions on race. Furthermore, their views became more polarized from one another. This research extends existing theories claiming that white childhood is a key period of the life course during which racial ideological positions are established and solidified. This study also helps bridge the gap between research focused on how very young children begin to think about race and research focused on how young adults defend and maintain their ideological positions on race. Overall, this work suggests theoretically that white racial socialization processes in childhood play a powerful role in shaping whites’ racial ideological positions throughout the rest of their lives.

Black Parenting Couples’ Discussions of the Racial Socialization Process: Occurrence and Effectiveness

Racial socialization (RS) is one of the most important practices Black parents undertake to promote the well-being of Black children. However, research has not examined how Black coparents navigate RS together. Integrating principles from the RS and coparenting literatures, this study investigated whether individual (e.g., racial identity), couple (e.g., relationship satisfaction), and contextual (e.g., neighborhood composition) correlates influenced the occurrence and effectiveness of inter-parental dialogue about RS. Forty-four couples completed surveys and responded to two RS vignettes, which were videotaped and coded. Actor-partner interdependence models (APIM) revealed significant actor and partner effects at all levels. Implications of the current study are discussed in terms of future research on how parents traverse the RS process are presented.

Latino Immigrant Family Socialization Scale: Development and Validation of a Multidimensional Ethnic-Racial Socialization Measurement.

The study describes multiple steps taken to develop and test the Latino Immigrant Family Socialization (LIFS) scale. Scale items were developed based on qualitative interviews, and feedback on the items was solicited from content experts including an academic, practitioner, and a group of promotoras (or lay health workers). The scale was completed by 300 Latino immigrant parents in the state of Arizona. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis confirmed a six-factor model. The six factors were cultural socialization, adapt, advocate, value diversity, promote mistrust, and educate about nativity and documentation. Follow-up studies are needed to continue the measurement validation process and assess how strategies are used in conjunction with each other, the application of the six strategies across different policy contexts, and how the ethnic-racial socialization process supports children's health and well-being.

White Racial Socialization: Progressive Fathers on Raising “Antiracist” Children

AbstractFor the past 30 years, the definition of racial socialization has referred to how parents prepare children of color to flourish within a society structured by white supremacy. Drawing on ethnographic interviews with eight white affluent fathers, this study explores fathers' participation in white racial socialization processes. The article focuses on fathers who identify as “progressive” and examines the relationship between fathers' understandings of what it means to raise an “antiracist” child, the explicit and implicit lessons of racial socialization that follow from these understandings, and hegemonic whiteness. Findings illustrate how these fathers understand their role as a white father, how their attempts to raise antiracist children both challenge and reinforce hegemonic whiteness, and what role race and class privilege play in this process.

African American Maternal Power and the Racial Socialization of Preschool Children

In the present qualitative study, we applied an integrated Black feminist-child development theoretical framework to examine how 12 African American mothers engaged the racial socialization process with their preschool-age girls and boys in the U.S. state of South Carolina. We specifically examined (a) the strategies and messages that mothers use during the racial socialization process and (b) mothers’ perceptions of external sources that influenced their children’s racial socialization experiences. Two major themes emerged from data analyses: Motherwork as Conscientization and Doing African American Mothering. An overarching finding was that mothers found the racial socialization of their children to be characterized by a struggle to maintain control over racialized messaging received by their children and a feeling of powerlessness over the influence of external forces in racial socialization. Mothers preferred to use cultural socialization and egalitarian socialization with their young children and believed that there was a developmental time of readiness for having conversations involving race and race discrimination.

A Qualitative Study of Biracial Identity Among Afro-Germans Living in Germany

The increase of mixed race individuals in Europe is shifting the racial environment, making it increasingly important to understand the experiences of multiracial and biracial individuals in the European context. This study, utilizing a qualitative design, explored racial identity development of biracial Afro-Germans living in Germany. The purpose of the study was to understand the strategies that biracial individuals use to negotiate their racial identity, factors that influence their development, cultural influences, and racial socialization processes. Interviews with biracial Afro-Germans were conducted using phenomenological interviewing techniques. Twelve themes emerged from the data that are best conceptualized in an ecological model. Implications of the findings include a need for continued research with Black-White biracial populations.

The Impact of Racial Socialization on the Academic Performance and Prosocial Involvement of Black Emerging Adults

Despite evidence linking racial socialization processes to the functioning of Black youth, the effect of these parenting practices among Black college students is less clear. This study examined the relationship among racial socialization messages, academic performance, and prosocial involvement for 295 Black college students. Results revealed that participants who received messages alerting them to the existence of racism were more involved in prosocial activities on campus and in the community; conversely, disparaging racial messages were negatively related to academic performance. Despite the college students’ newfound autonomy, findings suggest parental messages about race continue to impact Black college students.

Teaching about race/ethnicity and racism matters: An examination of how perceived ethnic racial socialization processes are associated with depression symptoms.

Ethnic racial socialization (ERS) processes include cultural socialization (enculturation), preparation for bias, and promotion of mistrust. Although often conflated, these processes may variably confer psychological risk or protection. Cultural socialization has often been found to be protective, whereas promotion of mistrust has at times been associated with risk. We hypothesized that the distinctive associations between ERS processes and depression might be explained by trait optimism and pessimism as potential mediators. Results from a sample of 670 African American, Latino, and Asian American young adults indicated that cultural socialization was negatively associated with depression, whereas preparation for bias and promotion of mistrust were positively associated with depression. Participants who reported that their families engaged in cultural socialization had a more optimistic and less pessimistic outlook, which in turn explained lower levels of depression symptoms. In contrast, reported familial preparation for bias and promotion of mistrust were linked to greater pessimism and less optimism, which in turn were associated with depression symptoms. Although there were racial/ethnic differences in mean levels of ERS processes, multigroup analyses revealed that the associations with depression symptoms were robust across groups.