Black Adolescents’ Critical Reflection Development: Parents’ Racial Socialization and Attributions about Race Achievement Gaps

• In Event: 2-016 - Integrating Racially/Ethnically Diverse Adolescents’ Racial/Ethnic Experiences in Critical Consciousness Research

Integrative Statement

Black youth recognize racial disparities in their schools and in society (Hope, Skoog, & Jagers, 2015). Their analysis of achievement disparities reflects their critical reflection (an aspect of critical consciousness), which may include structural attributions (i.e., beliefs that disparities are caused by racial discrimination, institutional racism, etc.) or individual attributions (i.e., beliefs that disparities are caused by people’s individual decisions, intelligence, etc.) to explain the causes of these gaps (Watts, Diemer, & Voight, 2011). Theory and empirical research indicate that parents’ racial socialization might inform adolescents’ critical reflection (Anyiwo et al., 2018; Thomas & Blackmon, 2015).

However, minimal empirical research has explored the development of Black adolescents’ critical reflection of achievement disparities, and how parents’ racial socialization and critical reflection might contribute to changes in youths’ critical reflection. As such, the current research explored two research questions (RQ):

1. Does Black adolescents’ structural and individual attributions of the Black-White achievement gap change from 10th to 12th grade? (RQ1)
2. To what extent does parents’ critical reflection and racial socialization (as measured by youth and parent reports of racial pride and preparation for bias socialization) predict changes in Black adolescents’ critical reflection? (RQ2)

Informed by theory and research, we hypothesized that adolescents’ structural attributions would increase over time, but individual attributions would remain stable. Further, we hypothesized that parents’ structural and individual attributions in Grade 10 would predict positive changes in adolescents’ structural and individual attributions, respectively over time. Parents’ and adolescents’ Grade 10 reports of preparation for bias would be positively related to changes in adolescents’ structural attributions and negatively related to changes in individual attributions. Parent and adolescent reports of racial pride messages in Grade 10 were expected to be negatively related to changes in youths’ individual attributions. No prediction was made regarding the association between racial pride socialization and changes in youths’ structural attributions.

Our sample consisted of 454 Black adolescents (56% girls; Mage = 16.0 years, SD = 0.79) and their parents from a medium-sized city in the southeastern U.S. Youth and parents completed surveys assessing their critical reflection (measure created for current study) and frequency of parental racial socialization messages (Hughes & Chen, 1997; Lesane-Brown et al., 2006).

Exploratory factor analyses indicated that youths’ reports of racial socialization comprised a single subscale that included both racial pride and preparation for bias socialization, whereas parents’ reports of racial pride and preparation for bias socialization measures comprised separate subscales. Youths’ and parents’ critical reflection of the achievement gap consisted of separate measures of individual and structural attributions.

Repeated-measures analysis of variance results indicated that adolescents’ structural attributions of the achievement gap changed over time (t(233) = -2.28, p = .02), whereas individual attributions remained stable (t(233) = 0.11, p = .87 (RQ1). Addressing RQ2, a structural equation model was conducted and fit the data well (see Figure 1). Youths’ reports of parental racial socialization predicted their structural attributions over time. Additionally, parents’ structural attributions predicted youths’ structural attributions. Findings that conflicted with study hypotheses will be discussed.

Authors

• Josefina Banales, University of Michigan
  Presenting Author

• Aixa D. Marchand, University of Michigan
  Non-Presenting Author

• Olivenne D Skinner, Wayne State University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Nkemka Anyiwo, University of Michigan
  Non-Presenting Author

• Stephanie Rowley, University of Michigan
  Non-Presenting Author

• Beth Kurtz-Costes, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
  Non-Presenting Author