How Does Racial Context Matter?: Family Preparation‐for‐Bias Messages and Racial Coping Reported by Black Youth

Abstract

Black families and youth likely consider specific racial discriminatory situations in preparation‐for‐bias messages and racial coping responses. Our study investigated coping responses embedded in youth‐reported Black families’ preparation‐for‐bias messages and youths’ proactive coping responses to specific racially discriminatory situations—teachers’ negative expectations, store employees’ hyper‐monitoring and police harassment. Gender and racial discrimination experience differences were considered along with relations between messages and coping. Our investigation was guided by the integrated‐developmental, transactional/ecological, intersectionality, and Phenomenological Variant of Ecological Systems Theory theoretical frameworks. We conducted cluster analyses using data from 117 Black youth aged 13–14 to identify situation‐specific family messages and youth coping responses. Families’ messages and youths’ responses varied in content and frequency based on the specific discriminatory situation, which suggests consideration of context.

African American Parents’ Educational Involvement in Urban Schools: Contextualized Strategies for Student Success in Adolescence

“…While families here endorsed traditional academic socialization aims (e.g., high aspirations and academic confidence), they infused their activities with racialized content to increase aspirations and confidence outright and to build resilience in the face of behavioral and intellectual biases. Given recent meta-analytic results showing that both cultural and bias socialization have overall positive associations with academic outcomes (Wang et al, 2019), findings here validate the role racialized content plays in academic socialization in terms of both supporting cultural and familial knowledge for their inherent value (Hughes et al, 2006; Yosso, 2005) and also for building racial resilience in the face of school-based discrimination (Allen & White-Smith, 2018; Howard & Reynolds, 2008; Scott et al, 2019; Stevenson, 2014). Future research should also aim to delineate the effects of specific racialized academic socialization practices and should do so across urban and suburban contexts given that racialized phenomena are well documented in both settings (Lewis-McCoy, 2014; O’Connor et al, 2011; Reynolds, 2010).…”

“…Over 80% of African American parents use racial socialization, with two modes being especially prominent: cultural socialization-promoting knowledge of positive racial histories and feelings of racial pride-and bias socializationteaching awareness and coping strategies related to racial discrimination experiences (Hughes et al, 2006;Huguley et al, 2019). Studies in educational contexts specifically have noted that discrimination experiences are common in schools (Allen, 2012;Carter Andrews & Gutwein, 2017;Howard & Reynolds, 2008;Wang & Huguley, 2012) and that in response, African American parents use racialized educational messages to promote resistance, resilience, and overall achievement in the face of these encounters (Allen & White-Smith, 2018;Carter Andrews, 2012;Scott et al, 2019;Yosso, 2005). Considered in tandem, racial socialization and the integrative developmental model elucidate both how and why families of color in inhibiting environments work to mitigate the psychological and material costs of racial subordination on their children's educational prospects.…”

“…Research on home-based involvement and academic socialization suffers from an analogous lack of contextual nuance despite documentation of both (a) racial differences in the effects of home-based involvement and academic socialization activities (Cheng & Starks, 2002; Davis-Kean, 2005; Lee & Bowen, 2006; Wang et al, 2014) and (b) ecological variation in the nature of these activities, such as the teaching of coping strategies in African American families specifically in response to school-based discrimination (Allen, 2012; Reynolds, 2010; Scott et al, 2019). Considered together, these compelling yet wide-ranging findings on race and parental involvement suggest the need for involvement conceptualizations that are more attentive to contextual specificity, and especially for formulations developed outside of White, middle-class settings.…”

In Their Own Voices: Identity and Racial Socialization Experiences of Young Adult Chinese Adoptees

“…Contemporary research on international and domestic adoption has focused on racial/ethnic identity development (Lee, 2003;Reynolds et al, 2016), racial and ethnic socialization patterns (Barn, 2013;Johnston et al, 2007;Langrehr, 2014;Montgomery & Powell, 2018;Pinderhughes et al, 2015a;Scott et al, 2019), psychological adjustment of the family (Goldberg & Smith, 2013;Wilkinson, 1995), adoption microaggressions (Baden, 2016;Sue et al, 2007), and naming and birth name reclamation practices (Reynolds et al, 2019;Reynolds et al, 2020;Suter, 2012). However, the majority of the extant transracial international adoption research has focused on Korean adoptee or adoptive mother perspectives.…”

“…Pinderhughes (2013) created an ethnic-racial socialization model that outlined the various factors influencing child outcomes, which included (a) the role of the parent (i.e., attitudes about cultural and ethnic differences, ethnic identity, cognitive and emotional processes, and the approach taken to facilitate ethnic-racial socialization), (b) ethnic-racial socialization process (i.e., the resources, activities, and discussions involved in cultural socialization and preparation for bias, as well as who is involved in this socialization process), and (c) child outcomes (i.e., ethnicracial identity, adoptive identity, emotional adjustment, and self-esteem). Other factors included in this model were contextual considerations (i.e., family schedule, lifestyle, types of activities) and developmental considerations (i.e., what, when, and how to share/provide, and when to allow the child to choose/lead; Scott et al, 2019).…”