The Role of Parent-child Conversations About Race in Children’s Emerging Racial Biases

• In Event: Leveraging Developmental Science to Advance Social Justice

Abstract

Parent-child conversations about race and racism play an important role in children’s racial socialization. Parents of color–and Black parents in particular–often adopt a color-conscious approach, reporting actively talking to their children about race and racism early (Vittrup, 2018). By contrast, White parents often take a colorblind approach, reporting passively talking to their children about race or avoiding talking about race altogether (Abaied & Perry, 2021). Much of this past work has relied on parent-report measures of conversations; few studies have directly observed how parents and children talk about issues related to race and racism or how these conversations might relate to children’s developing racial attitudes.

In the present study, we recorded video and audio data from parent-child conversations about race and racism. Parents and children also completed separate surveys assessing parents’ beliefs about race and racism and children’s racial biases. The goals of the study were threefold, to explore how conversational strategies relate to: 1) child age and family race, 2) parent beliefs, and 3) children’s racial biases.

Methods
Parent-Child Conversation. Parent-child dyads (N=124; children 4-8years; M=5.85, SD=1.14; 40 monoracial White families, 48 monoracial families of color, and 23 multi-racial families were shown six prompts designed to elicit conversations about race and racism (e.g. “Why do people have different skin colors?”) and were asked to discuss the prompts together. Video and audio data were recorded, transcribed, and coded for use of color-blind and color conscious language.
Parent Survey. Parents completed a separate survey assessing their beliefs about race and racism (e.g. “How much of a problem do you believe racism is in the United States today?”; 0 = “Does not exist” to 10 = “Biggest problem facing the US”).
Child Survey. Children completed a separate survey assessing their racial biases (e.g., children’s choice to play with children from different racial groups).

Results
Overall, we found that monoracial Black families used more color-conscious (fewer color-blind) explanations when talking about race compared to monoracial White families (β = 0.008, SE = 0.35, p = 0.01) and that both Black and White families used more color-conscious explanations as children got older (β = 0.53, SE = 0.21, p = 0.016).
We also found that White parents who thought that racism was a bigger problem in the United States were less likely to use color-blind explanations (β = -0.32, SE = 0.14, p = 0.021). And, importantly, that older children from families who use less color-blind explanations were more likely to choose to play with a Black child compared to those from families who used more color-blind explanations (β = 0.65, SE = 0.27, p = 0.018).

Discussion
These findings strengthen our understanding of how families are talking about race. Importantly, this work provides novel insight into the consequences of family use of color-blind conversational strategies on children’s development of racial bias. Lastly, they highlight parent beliefs about racism– particularly White parents’ beliefs–as one potential avenue for intervention in decreasing use of color-blind conversational strategies.

Authors

• Tobi Britton, New York University
  Presenting Author

• Jonah Brenner

• Michael Thomas Rizzo, New York University

• Marjorie Rhodes, New York University