Parents' Racial Beliefs and Ethnic–Racial Socialization in African American Families

Abstract:We investigated relations among African American parents' reports of ethnic–racial socialization received during their own childhood, their racial attitudes (i.e., perceptions of U.S. racial climate and valuing of intergroup contact), and their 12th-grade children's reports of parents' use of racial pride socialization and preparation for bias. Parents' (N = 193) reports of received racial pride and preparation for bias socialization were related to their children's reports of parents' current use of those types of socialization. The parents' received preparation for bias was positively related to their perceptions of a hostile U.S. racial climate, and parents' perceptions of racial climate predicted adolescents' reports of their parents' use of preparation for bias. Valuing of intergroup contact was unrelated to adolescent reports of either type of racial socialization. Findings support the intergenerational transmission of ethnic–racial socialization in African American families and show that parents' attitudes and behaviors are related in theoretically predicted ways.