1-057 - Ethnic-racial socialization from early childhood to adolescence: Features and implications of moving beyond correlational design

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Integrative Statement

Scholarship on ethnic-racial socialization holds promise to advance understanding of processes that are adaptive in families underrepresented across developmental science. Research documenting specific links between these strategies and child well-being has signaled ethnic-racial socialization as protective in nature. However a majority of the extant literature is correlational in design and studies adolescents, thus there remains a need to encourage longitudinal designs as well as “extend out” the period of development under study.

This symposium brings together three examinations of ethnic-racial socialization from robust longitudinal studies at various stages of the research process, with distinct features, and which focus on different developmental periods, i.e., early childhood, early adolescence, and mid-to-late adolescence: However all presentations examine the role of ethnic-racial socialization on child/youth adjustment. The intent is to bring to light conceptual and methodological challenges of longitudinal examinations and present illustrative analyses of data as these authors move beyond correlational design:

Paper 1 employed cross-lagged panel models in a preschool sample and found stability of ethnic-racial socialization across time; highlighting shifts during kindergarten, when ethnic-racial socialization predicted behavior problems.

Paper 2 examined the predictive shifts in fathers’ racial socialization on school adjustment and psychological functioning through middle school and found consistent patterns across waves when predicting school engagement.

Paper 3 examined the changes in effects of ethnic-racial socialization in conjunction with parental warmth on youth adjustment to stressors across high school and found associations between ethnic-racial socialization and depressive symptoms shifted between ages 15 and 18, but did not find cross-wave effects.

Sub Unit

• Race, Ethnicity, Culture, Context

Chair

• Mariah Margaret Contreras, Tufts University

Discussant

• Mia A. Smith Bynum, University of Maryland

Individual Presentations

• Longitudinal dynamics of ethnic-racial socialization and its time varying effects on young children's behavioral adjustment - Presenting Author: Mariah Margaret Contreras, Tufts University; Margaret O'Brien Caughy, University of Georgia; Margaret Tresch Owen, University of Texas at Dallas

• Exploring the link between African American fathers' racial socialization practices and adolescent adjustment - Presenting Author: Charity Brown Griffin, Winston Salem State University; Shauna M Cooper, University of South Carolina

• Promotive and protective effects of general versus race-specific factors for African American youth - Presenting Author: Farzana T. Saleem, The George Washington University; Sharon F. Lambert, The George Washington University