Race and Social Status Beliefs in Children of Asian American Immigrant Parents: Contributions of Family Processes

• In Event: Parents’ Contributions to Children’s and Adolescent’s Beliefs about Social Class and Economic Inequality

Abstract

Beliefs regarding race and social status undergo significant change over the course of middle childhood and adolescence. For Asian Americans, the intersections of race and social status are embodied in the “model minority myth”: stereotypes of Asian Americans as an academically- and economically-successful racial minority group. AAs’ internalization of the model minority stereotype has been shown to impact their psychological well-being and attitudes toward other racial-ethnic minority groups. However, the processes through which these beliefs about race and social status develop over the course of middle childhood and adolescence remain largely unknown.

This presentation examined these processes in two studies of Chinese American (CA) children, adolescents, and their immigrant parents. In Study 1, CA children (N = 169; 7-11 years old) were asked to imagine children at the top and bottom of a social status ladder, then identify each child as White, Black, or Asian. Observed distributions differed significantly from expected distributions for both the top and bottom child (Top: 2 (2, N = 164) = 24.37, p < .001; Bottom: 2 (2, N = 164) = 8.04, p = .018). When choosing images to represent children at the bottom of the ladder, CA children were more likely than chance to choose images of Black children, and less likely than chance to choose images of White children (standardized residuals = -2.31 and -1.56, respectively). By contrast, for the child at the top of the ladder, children were more likely than chance to choose images of White children, and less likely to choose images of Black children (standardized residuals = -4.03 and 2.83, respectively). Both direct and indirect forms of ethnic-racial socialization (ERS) were tested as predictors of children’s race and social status rankings. Logistic regression results indicated children with higher Chinese language proficiency were less likely to envision Asian children at the bottom of the ladder.

Study 2 expanded findings of Study 1 through a pilot study of CA adolescents (N = 30; 11-17 years old) and their immigrant parents. Both adolescents and parents completed online questionnaires, semi-structured video interviews, and a dyadic discussion task assessing their views of race and social status, internalization of model minority beliefs, and ERS practices. Adolescents reporting greater parent preparation for racial-ethnic bias were less likely to endorse views of AAs as a model minority with unrestricted social mobility (r = -.48, p = .007). Across the entire sample, adolescents and parents both ranked White Americans as the racial group with the highest relative social status and AAs with the second-highest social status, and Black and Latinx Americans with the lowest social status (adolescent: 2 (3, N = 30) = 61.29, p < .001; parent: 2 (3, N = 25) = 49.27, p < .001). However, within families, adolescent and parent rankings of racial groups’ relative social status were not associated.

Taken together, results from both studies point to both direct and indirect influences on AA children and adolescents’ developing views of race and social status.

Author

• Stephen H Chen, Wellesley College
  Presenting Author