Poster #65 - ‘It’s Like Planting Seeds Little By Little’: Racial-ethnic Socialization Among Asian American Families

• In Event: Poster Session 20

Abstract

Introduction. Parental racial-ethnic socialization (RES) – the process of transmitting messages about race and ethnicity to children – has promotive and protective effects for Asian American children (Umaña-Taylor & Hill, 2020). Research on Asian American families has mostly focused on cultural socialization processes, with less research examining racial socialization (Juang et al., 2017). While evidence indicates that children are making sense of their racial-ethnic identities (Williams et al., 2020), few studies have connected parental RES engagement with preadolescent children’s perspectives. The current study examined how Asian American parents approach cultural and racial socialization with their children (ages 6-12) and how these approaches may correspond with children’s perspectives on race-related topics.
Methods. Participants include 33 Asian American parents (Mage = 44.3, SD = 5.6, 91% female) and their children (Mage = 8.6, SD = 2.0, 58% girls). The sample includes an array of Asian ethnic groups (e.g., Filipino, Vietnamese, Taiwanese). Sixty-three percent of children were of Southeast Asian descent and 42% were multiracial (see Table 1). Data are drawn from remote child interviews, parent interviews, and parent-child observations where parent-child dyads co-viewed and discussed a child-friendly book explaining racism and answered discussion prompts. During the child interview, participants were asked an open-ended question to identify their race or ethnicity and to create a rank-order to determine which group(s) described them the most. Follow-up semi-structured questions inquired about how children made sense of their racial-ethnic identity. Parents reported their children’s race/ethnicity in an online survey, and were asked about how they engage in cultural and racial socialization with their children during a semi-structured interview. Child and parent interviews were inductively coded and the emerging themes compared to illuminate how parents’ socialization efforts may be influencing children’s understanding of race-related topics.
Results. Preliminary findings were categorized in two predominant themes: 1) cultural socialization and 2) racial socialization (see Table 2). Three cultural socialization themes emerged: Some parents expressed having knowledge and access to resources (e.g., language classes, extended family), whereas some yearned to pass on their cultural heritage, but did not have access to resources. Others engaged in some cultural socialization but recognized they could do more. One racial socialization theme emerged: Most parents expressed uncertainty on how and when to discuss race and racism with their children, but specific uncertainties varied among parents. Parents who already engaged in race-related conversations with their children shared about the challenges of balancing discussions of negative aspects of racism with messages to instill racial-ethnic pride in their children. Parents who had few to no race-related conversations with their children expressed hesitancy around how to engage in age-appropriate conversations, and a reliance on schools to initiate these discussions. Next steps include coding the child data and assessing the degree of correspondence between parent and child data in order to understand how parents’ RES approaches are resonating with their children. Findings will build our understanding of Asian American parental RES and how we can best support families.

Authors

• Anna M. Kimura, University of California - Los Angeles
  Presenting Author

• Stephanie T Nguyen, University of California - Los Angeles

• Rashmita S. Mistry, University of California - Los Angeles