(Mis)Alignment between White Parents’ Ethnic-Racial Socialization Goals and Practices

• In Event: Poster Session 09
  In Poster Session: PS 09 Topic - Race, Ethnicity, Culture, Context

Abstract

Parents have great potential to teach their children anti-racist attitudes and anti-discriminatory behaviors (Aboud & Doyle, 1996). For White parents, however, the dominant racial goal for their children has been “colorblindness” (ignoring racial realities; Bonilla-Silva & Dietrich, 2011), and the most common racial socialization “practice” has been silence (Pahlke, 2012; Vittrup, 2018). With racialized current events such as the Charlottesville White nationalist rally and the separation of migrant families at the border, however, White parents may increasingly feel the need to address race with their children. Indeed, in our previous research (citation blinded), we found that White parents who were recruited in 2018 from a K–8 school that is explicitly committed to promoting racial diversity held a number of color-aware racial socialization goals for their children (e.g., privilege awareness, take action, egalitarianism). Using this same sample, the current study focuses on what these parents do to meet these goals—their ethnic-racial socialization (ERS) practices.

Thirty-five White parents (88.6% female, ages 32-68, Mage=45.61) of White children (42.9% female, ages 5-14, Mage=10.10) completed a structured interview about their racial socialization practices. Using the Consensual Qualitative Research approach (Hill et. al, 2005), several themes emerged (see Table 1).

Of the many different practices identified, some of the most common were: conversations, exposure to diversity, and modeling. For example, conversations covered many of the goals parents had through discussing a wide array of topics related to race (e.g. white privilege, racial inequalities, current events, school, allyship etc.). For example, parents who had the goal of privilege awareness for their child often facilitated this goal through conversations (e.g, “the older they get, the more intentional we are with conversations around what it means for them, what sorts of things they get to benefit from as a result.”).

Although many parent’s socialization practices were aligned with their goals, preliminary analysis indicate that some were not. For example, many parents expressed wanting to expose their child to diversity, yet they often immersed their child(ren) in predominantly White spaces (e.g., “I mean, my God, he certainly is not in some kind of, richly diverse environment. And I’m well aware of that. I wish that were a little different.”).

Given the discrepancies between goals and practices, further analyses will examine parent’s motivations and barriers for engaging in these ERS practices. Previous research has found that when engaging in other socialization topics (e.g., sex education and mental health) parents struggle with lack of confidence and knowledge in the subject as well as the feelings that arise when facilitating these conversations (Constantine & Jerman, 2010; Reardon et al. 2017). We expect our findings to align with the current literature on barriers for parent-child socialization. This study has the potential to discern the conditions under which well-meaning White parents’ ethnic-racial socialization goals do and do not align with their practices. This information is essential for developing educational programming for White parents.

Authors

• Luna Giron, Macalester College
  Non-Presenting Author

• Nancy Gomez, Macalester College
  Non-Presenting Author

• Victoria Vargas-Castro, Macalester College
  Non-Presenting Author

• Asya Harrison, California State University - Fullerton
  Non-Presenting Author

• Taylor Hazelbaker, The College of St. Scholastica
  Non-Presenting Author

• Virginia W Huynh, California State University - Northridge
  Non-Presenting Author

• Cari Gillen-O'Neel, Macalester College
  Presenting Author