Are Young Adults More Than Just ‘Receivers’ of Racial-ethnic Socialization Messages?

• In Event: A dynamic understanding of socialization for Asian American youth development

Abstract

Introduction. Immigrants currently account for close to 14% of the United States’ population with one in four children growing up in an immigrant household. Yet, little is known about how immigrant parents and their youth dialogue about race and ethnicity, especially in response to the evolving sociopolitical environment in the U.S. Traditionally, the youth’s role in racial-ethnic socialization (RES) has been conceptualized as receivers of messages around race and ethnicity from their parents. However, differential rates at which adolescents and parents acculturate to the broader society could lead the adolescent to possess a more contemporary understanding of the racial landscape in the United States relative to their parents, and with that knowledge, immigrant youth may also be the “deliverer” of messages on racial socialization in addition to being a “receiver”. To inform our understanding of the potential process of how youth might be positioned to socialize their parents on race/ethnicity (e.g., informing them of racial slurs) and participate in maintaining heritage culture (e.g., actively asking parents to celebrate festivals), this study explore relevant predictors of adolescent-directed racial-ethnic socialization (public regard, internalized model minority myth, and discrimination).

Methods. Sample included 241 pan-ethnic Asian American youth recruited via Qualtrics panel (61% female; 93% U.S. born). Adolescent-directed Racial-ethnic Socialization Scale (Patel et al., under review), Short Critical Consciousness Scale (Diemer et al., 2022), Multidimensional Inventory of Black Identity – public regard subscale (Sellers et al., 1997), Internalization of the Model Minority Myth Measures (Yoo et al., 2010), Lifetime Discrimination (Harrell et al., 1997)

Results. The regression analysis (Table 1) exploring the predictors of ADRES revealed internalized model minority myth (b=.15, SE = .06, p <.05), public regard (b=.39, SE = .11, p <.001), and discrimination (b=.49, SE = .06, p <.001) to be significantly associated with maintenance of heritage culture messages. Whereas only discrimination (b=.63, SE = .09, p <.001) was significantly associated with ADRES awareness of discrimination messages.

Discussion. Overall, discriminatory experiences seem to prompt young adults’ to provide their parents with awareness of discrimination messages (e.g., helping parents identify discriminatory experiences, challenging discriminatory statements said by parents) as well as actively seek out heritage cultural experiences (e.g., asking parents to speak in to them in heritage language); the latter is corroborated in some ways with broader literature that shows engaging with heritage culture can act as a protective factor in the face of discrimination (Atkin et al., 2018). Interestingly, internalization of model minority myth and higher public regard also lead to active engagement with heritage culture but were not associated with provision of messages that raised awareness of discrimination. Consistent with broader literature, internalization of broader “positive” stereotypes and perceiving that broader society thinks highly of your group could act as a barrier from reflecting on disparities and injustices within broader society (Matriano et al., 2021). Future studies might benefit from assessing individual (e.g., racial-ethnic identity development), familial (e.g., parent-child communication), and contextual factors (e.g., social media exposure) to further understand ADRES within lived experiences of minoritized youth.

Authors

• Puja Patel, University of North Carolina at Greensboro
  Presenting Author

• Gabriela Livas Stein, University of North Carolina at Greensboro

• Lisa Kiang, Wake Forest University

• Linda Juang, University of Potsdam