Poster #45 - Ethnic-Racial Socialization and Developmental Outcomes in Homeless Youth: Examining the Role of Parental Distress

• In Event: Poster Session 06

Abstract

Ethnic-racial socialization (ERS) has been shown to promote positive child development and protect ethnic-racial minority children from experiences of discrimination (Umana-Taylor & Hill, 2020). However, the existing literature has not adequately addressed the development implications of ERS in the context of homelessness. The purpose of this study is to understand the impact of parent’s ERS practices on development outcomes in young children experiencing homelessness. We also examined the moderating effect of parental distress on the association between the dimensions of ethnic-racial socialization (i.e., cultural socialization, preparation for bias, and promotion of mistrust) and socioemotional/cognitive competence.The current sample includes 69 family dyads (caregiver and child) who resided in a large metropolitan emergency shelter. During study sessions, caregiver participated in an interview where they answered questions about their demographics, experiences of parental distress, and ethnic-racial socialization practices. In a separate room, the participating child completed a battery of cognitive tasks. Parental distress was measured using the Kessler Screening Scale for Psychological Distress (Kessler et al., 2003). Ethnic-racial socialization was assessed using the Parent’s Ethnic-Racial Socialization scale (Tran & Lee, 2010). Parents also completed a strengths and difficulty questionnaire (SDQ) to measure socioemotional competence of their children. Children were asked to complete the flanker task and the dimensional change card sort (DCCS) task to measure cognitive competence. Zero-order correlations with the study variables showed that family structure and perceived distress were significantly related to internalizing problems (see Table 1). Cultural socialization and preparation for bias were associated negatively with externalizing problems, but marginally with internalizing symptoms and performance on the two cognitive tasks. Both cognitive tasks correlated significantly with child’s age.Hierarchical regression models evaluated the unique contribution of ERS practices on socioemotional and cognitive competence as well as the moderating effects of parental distress. After controlling for child’s age and family structure, parental distress predicted internalizing symptoms, whereas child’s age predicted performance on the flanker and DCCS tasks. Across all four hierarchical models, we found only one significant interaction: cultural socialization and parental distress predicted children’s performance on the flanker task(see Table 2).Specifically, under conditions of low parental distress, cultural socialization was associated with higher cognitive competence, b = 1.602, SE= .656, p= .02), but this association was not significant under high levels of parental distress. These findings indicate that cultural socialization may have beneficial effects on young children’s cognitive development when caregivers are less stressed.

Authors

• Carlos Rolando Melendez, University of Maryland - College Park
  Presenting Author

• Cara M. Lucke, University of Minnesota - Twin Cities

• Ann S. Masten, University of Minnesota - Twin Cities

• Fanita Amincia Tyrell, University of Maryland - College Park