A significant body of research examines ethnic‐racial socialization among families of color, yet rarely investigates the influence of youths’ phenotype (e.g., skin color) on ethnic‐racial ...socialization. How families of color make meaning of youths’ skin color may cause variation in ethnic‐racial socialization. To address this gap, we propose the Phenomenological Ethnic‐Racial Socialization Conceptual Model, which details how the meaning families of color make of phenotype within contexts and in consideration of youths’ identities affects ethnic‐racial socialization. In the application of the model to U.S. Black and Latino youth and families, we specifically focus on how the meaning of skin color, affected by context and immigrant identity, can influence ethnic‐racial socialization. Theoretical frameworks that can be used to investigate components and relations within the model are briefly discussed. We conclude with a discussion of the implications for research and practice, limitations of the conceptual model, and future research.
Immigrant‐origin minority adolescents combine their common national identity with distinct ethnic identities. Depending on different social ecologies they develop more or less compatible dual ...identifications. Taking an ecological approach to ethnic‐racial socialization (ERS), we investigate how schools and peers as socializing agents can afford compatible ethnic and national identifications. We draw on the Children of Immigrants Longitudinal Survey of 944 Turkish and Moroccan minority adolescents in 229 classrooms across 55 Belgian secondary schools with low (10%) to high minority presence (60%+). On average ethnic and national identifications were not significantly associated. In support of the protective role of minority peers, multilevel modeling revealed that national and ethnic identifications were more compatible in classrooms with more minority peers; while school discrimination undermined compatibility only in classrooms with fewer minority peers. We conclude that minority peers are key agents in the socialization of compatible ethnic and national identities.
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 parent‐adolescent 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.
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 adjustment. The potential to develop and extend interventions around both systemic issues and the direct needs of families is discussed.
Recently, there has been an emergence of literature on the mechanisms through which parents transmit information, values, and perspectives about ethnicity and race to their children, commonly ...referred to as
racial
or
ethnic socialization
. This literature has sought to document the nature of such socialization, its antecedents in parents' and children's characteristics and experiences, and its consequences for children's well-being and development. In this article, the authors integrate and synthesize what is known about racial and ethnic socialization on the basis of current empirical research, examining studies concerning its nature and frequency; its child, parent, and ecological predictors; and its consequences for children's development, including ethnic identity, self-esteem, coping with discrimination, academic achievement, and psychosocial well-being. The authors also discuss conceptual and methodological limitations of the literature and suggest directions for future research.
This article provides an explanation for previously observed gender differences in scientific performance during doctoral studies and the early career. Data is based on doctoral students in science, ...technology, and medicine at a Swedish university. We collected information on each doctoral student's publication and employment history. We also created publication histories for the doctoral candidates main supervisors. The data was supplemented with information on gender, age, and research area. Informed by theories on academic socialization, our research questions focus on how gender differences in productivity during doctoral studies and the early career relate to research collaboration and behaviour/characteristics of the main supervisor. Results show that the gender gap in productivity during doctoral studies, and the early career, can be explained by the degree to which the doctoral students co-author publications with their main supervisors and the size of their collaborative networks.
Dominant theoretical explanations of racial disparities in criminal offending overlook a key risk factor associated with race: interpersonal racial discrimination. Building on recent studies that ...analyze race and crime at the micro-level, we specify a social psychological model linking personal experiences with racial discrimination to an increased risk of offending. We add to this model a consideration of an adaptive facet of African American culture: ethnicracial socialization, and explore whether two forms—cultural socialization and preparation for bias—provide resilience to the criminogenic effects of interpersonal racial discrimination. Using panel data from several hundred African American male youth from the Family and Community Health Study, we find that racial discrimination is positively associated with increased crime in large part by augmenting depression, hostile views of relationships, and disengagement from conventional norms. Results also indicate that preparation for bias significantly reduces the effects of discrimination on crime, primarily by reducing the effects of these social psychological mediators on offending. Cultural socialization has a less influential but beneficial effect. Finally, we show that the more general parenting context within which preparation for bias takes place influences its protective effects.
Parental toy selection and responses to toy play are important factors in children’s gender socialization. Reinforcing play with same-gender-typed toys guides children’s activities and limits their ...action repertoires in accordance with gender stereotypes. A survey of 324 Austrian parents of three- to six-year-old children was conducted to investigate parents’ judgments about the desirability of different types of toys for their children and how these judgements relate to parents’ gender-typing of toys, gender role attitudes, and demographics (age, education, gender). Results show that parents rated same-gender-typed and gender-neutral toys as more desirable for their children than cross-gender-typed toys. The traditionalism of parents’ gender role attitudes was not associated with their desirability judgments of same-gender-typed toys, but was negatively related to their desirability judgments of cross-gender-typed toys. This indicates that egalitarian parents permit a greater range of interests and behaviors in their children than traditional parents do. Younger parents, parents with lower educational levels, and fathers reported more traditional gender role attitudes than did older parents, parents with higher educational levels, and mothers. However, no differences based on age, educational level or gender were found in parents’ judgments of toy desirability. The present study demonstrates that parents’ judgments about the desirability of toys for their children do not accurately reflect their gender role attitudes. This finding highlights the importance of simultaneously investigating different aspects of parents’ gender-related attitudes in order to gain a better understanding of parental transmission of gender stereotypes.
Green consumption values have been shown to motivate consumers to engage in green consumption practices. However, surprisingly little research has examined how green consumption values develop in ...young people. In the current study, we employed ecological socialization theory as a framework to investigate the process by which parents’ green consumption values shape similar values in their young adolescents. In Study 1, data from 722 Chinese families that included an early adolescent (ages 10 to 15) showed that both mothers’ and fathers’ green consumption values were positively associated with early adolescents’ green consumption values, and this association was mediated by each parent’s environmentally responsible consumption behavior. Study 2 replicated the results of Study 1 using two waves of matched parent-adolescent data collected a month apart from another group of 477 Chinese families. Furthermore, Study 2 showed that the mediation process identified in Study 1 was evident only when there was a close parent–child relationship. These findings have implications for cultivating the green consumption values of today’s youth. The results also have heuristic value for future research on the ecological socialization and inter-generational transmission of pro-environmental values.
Multiple lines of research indicate that fathers often treat boys and girls differently in ways that impact child outcomes. The complex picture that has emerged, however, is obscured by ...methodological challenges inherent to the study of parental caregiving, and no studies to date have examined the possibility that gender differences in observed real-world paternal behavior are related to differential paternal brain responses to male and female children. Here we compare fathers of daughters and fathers of sons in terms of naturalistically observed everyday caregiving behavior and neural responses to child picture stimuli. Compared with fathers of sons, fathers of daughters were more attentively engaged with their daughters, sang more to their daughters, used more analytical language and language related to sadness and the body with their daughters, and had a stronger neural response to their daughter's happy facial expressions in areas of the brain important for reward and emotion regulation (medial and lateral orbitofrontal cortex OFC). In contrast, fathers of sons engaged in more rough and tumble play (RTP), used more achievement language with their sons, and had a stronger neural response to their son's neutral facial expressions in the medial OFC (mOFC). Whereas the mOFC response to happy faces was negatively related to RTP, the mOFC response to neutral faces was positively related to RTP, specifically for fathers of boys. These results indicate that real-world paternal behavior and brain function differ as a function of child gender.
PDF
