Latinx youth's ethnic‐racial identity in context: Examining ethnic‐racial socialization in a new destination area

Abstract

The current study examined how ethnic-racial socialization (i.e., ERS; cultural socialization, preparation for bias) is shaped by neighborhood characteristics and parents' perceived discrimination, as well as how ERS shapes youth ethnic-racial identity (ERI) among Latinx parentadolescent dyads (N = 69) living in a new destination area (i.e., not historically settled by Latinx populations). Results showed that neighborhood diversity was positively associated with parents' ERS beliefs, which in turn were associated with youth's perceptions of parents' ERS behaviors, which predicted youth ERI outcomes (i.e., centrality and private regard). Neighborhood problems were negatively associated with youth public regard. Neither neighborhood problems nor parents' perceived discrimination was associated with ERS. The current study adds to limited empirical evidence on how neighborhood structural and social characteristics impact ERS, and in turn, ERI, among Latinx families. Overall, study findings advance knowledge on how cultural and contextual factors shape ERS in an understudied context.

One talk at a time: Developing an ethnic‐racial socialization intervention for Black, Latinx, and Asian American families

“…Further, consistent with past work and theory, parents viewed these conversations as avenues to strengthen their parent-child relationships (Anderson et al, 2018). Parents also responded positively to the inclusion of contextual factors as shaping their ERS messages, in particular considering both school and extracurricular activities, which aligns with recent calls to pay more attention to these diverse contextual and social factors as important contributors to the types of ERS conversations families engage in (Hughes et al, 2016;Umaña-Taylor & Hill, 2020;Witherspoon et al, 2021), and suggests that supports for parents in these contexts may provide an avenue to tackle these complex social issues.…”

“…It is more important, then, to help their child make sense of messages they are bound to receive in the broader society. In the same vein, as transactional models of ERS highlight, it is also important for parents to tailor their messages to individual factors, such as skin tone, gender, and immigrant status, as well as contextual factors like the racial composition of school and neighborhood (Hughes et al., 2016; Umaña‐Taylor & Hill, 2020; Witherspoon et al., 2021). For the most part, OTAAT does not provide the specific messages that parents should give, but instead helps parents to consider the types of messages they want to deliver considering the unique characteristics and context of their youth.…”

Through the looking glass: Ethnic racial socialization among children and adolescents

“…Third, the paper by Witherspoon et al. (2021) address the growing geographic dispersion of Latinos from traditional immigrant destinations to new destinations or neighborhoods where they are underrepresented. The authors note the lack of research examining the simultaneous influence of structural and social neighborhood characteristics on ERS and youth's ethnic‐racial identity (ERI).…”

Ethnic‐racial socialization among Black, Latinx, and White parents of elementary school‐age children

“…For example, Umaña‐Taylor and Yazedjian (2006) found that foreign born mothers were more likely than US born mothers to discuss the importance of having respect for all people—a concept similar to some aspects of our egalitarian measure (e.g., “it is important to appreciate people of all racial and ethnic backgrounds”). The neighborhood context is also an important consideration for better understanding ethnic‐racial socialization practices among Latinx families (Witherspoon et al., 2021). Given the differences in neighborhood diversity and other neighborhood characteristics across the online and in‐person groups, this may have also been a factor in the types of ERS messages Latinx parents in our sample chose to send their children.…”