Objectives: Exposure to racism experienced by caregivers poses a threat to child developmental outcomes. The current study examines the effects of caregiver-experienced racism on the development of internalizing behaviors for African American children during a sensitive period in their development of racial awareness. Two aspects of caregiver-provided ethnic racial socialization (ERS), cultural socialization and preparation for bias, were assessed as moderators. Supported by prior research, cultural socialization was hypothesized to be protective. Given that research on preparation for bias in early childhood is sparse or inconclusive, no directional hypothesis was formulated for the moderation effect of preparation for bias. Method: A community-recruited, low-income sample of 130 African American caregivers and their children (T3 Mage = 6.20, T4 Mage = 7.17) reported on past-year experiences with racism, ERS practices, and child internalizing behaviors. Path analyses were utilized to assess the influence of caregivers’ racist experiences and ERS practices on children’s first grade internalizing behaviors after controlling for kindergarten levels. Results: Cultural socialization was not a significant protective factor as hypothesized. However, caregivers’ past-year experiences with racism predicted more anxious and sad behaviors in children when caregivers reported using more preparation for bias. Conclusions: The effects of caregivers’ racism experiences on their 6-year-old children’s internalizing behaviors were contingent on their use of preparation for bias socialization. This study adds to the literature on racism and further elucidates the role preparation for discrimination plays in developmental outcomes for young African American children.

Historically, research has been used by systems of authority to marginalize and oppress minoritized populations. Family scientists have recently begun the work of disentangling themselves from these oppressive legacies (e. g., White supremacist, sexist, heterosexist, cisgenderist, etc.). As such, the field is at a vital crux in which there is a need to challenge prevailing quantitative methodological assumptions and practices in order to address and disrupt how statistical analyses can shape family sciences away from a social‐justice agenda. Drawing upon principles of critical social theory, critical race theory, and Black Feminist scholarship, this article elaborates on how family scientists can utilize Quantitative Criticalism, or QuantCrit, as a framework for conducting social justice‐orientated quantitative research. We conclude by illustrating how the tenets of QuantCrit can be utilized throughout the research process. It is our hope that readers will identify moments in their own scholarship in which these tenets can be applied.

Guided by the Theory of Racial Socialization in Action (TRSA; Smith‐Bynum in press), this study examined observed caregiver‐provided ethnic‐racial socialization in response to a school‐based discriminatory dilemma. Forty‐five Black and 36 Latinx caregivers (88% mothers) with low‐income and their children (Mage = 11.09, SD = 0.29; 46.3% female) participated in Dallas, Texas from 2018 to 2019. Dyads responded to a hypothetical scenario in which a school counselor makes a discriminatory comment to the child. Results of a factor mixture analysis suggested that caregivers engaged in the dialogue using one of four approaches: Low‐engaged, Legacy, Racial Literacy, or High‐engaged. Profiles were found to differ significantly by the race/ethnicity and language of caregivers and were associated with youth’s concurrent behavioral engagement (R2 = .04).

Ethnic-racial socialization is at the core of ethnic minority families' adaptive response to a racialized social climate. Protective links between ethnic-racial socialization and children's adjustment are well documented in the adolescent years; however, very few studies have considered the ethnic-racial socialization of young children altogether and fewer still have examined the links to adjustment using longitudinal designs. Leveraging unique, longitudinal data, the present study modeled African American and Latinx caregivers' emergent use of multiple ethnic-racial socialization strategies across the critical period when children first enter school, testing how their strategies dynamically interplay with children's early behavior adjustment. Results indicated an early pathway in which a child's behavior adjustment problems at 2.5 years may cascade to caregivers' use of preparation for bias strategies at 3.5 years which in turn may modestly spillover in children's behavior adjustment in kindergarten. There was also modest evidence that cultural socialization strategies used in kindergarten may serve a protective function for future behavior

After a video of an officer kneeling on George Floyd's neck went viral in May 2020, a global outcry ensued challenging the disproportionate use of fatal force against people of color by police officers in the United States (U.S.). In an unprecedented court case, former police officer, Derek Chauvin, was convicted on all three counts to which he was accused (i.e., unintentional second-degree murder, third-degree murder, second-degree manslaughter) by a Minneapolis jury in April 2021. In a sentencing memorandum citing facts concluded by the district court, Judge Peter Cahill described Chauvin as "indifferent to Mr. Floyd's pleas" even as he begged for his life "obviously terrified by the knowledge that he was likely to die" (State of Minnesota vs. Derek Michael Chauvin, 2021, p. 13). These events and viral videos take a unique and deleterious toll on those targeted by police violence (Alexander, 1994). As a result, Black and Brown families live in fear of police encounters every day (Bor et al., 2018;Graham et al., 2020;Pickett et al., 2022).To address these fears, caregivers may discuss a hypothetical police encounter with their children to guide them through what to do and say (Anderson, O'Brien Caughy, & Owen, 2022;Anderson & Stevenson, 2019). Such conversations are integral to the complex and iterative process known as ethnic-racial socialization (ERS). The corpus of the work on ERS relies heavily on Black parents' self-reported socialization provided to their adolescent children (Hughes et al., 2006;Umaña-Taylor & Hill, 2020). To expand upon this existing, rich literature base, we used observational methods to capture ERS processes in real time with Black and Latinx caregivers and their early adolescent children as they discussed how to respond during a hypothetical police encounter. Acknowledging several gaps identified in the literature, this study examines how caregivers may adapt their ERS to their child's self-regulation needs and whether the