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Poster #174 - Examining the Relationship Between Resilience, Racial Identity and Racial Socialization in Collegiate Women of Color

Sat, March 23, 8:00 to 9:15am, Baltimore Convention Center, Floor: Level 1, Exhibit Hall B

Integrative Statement

Racial socialization is the process of preparing children to understand their unique heritage, culture, and the meaning of membership in a low status racial group (Hughes and Chen, 1997). Racial socialization has been found to be a protective factor associated with developmental outcomes of children, adolescents and emerging adults (Neblett et al., 2009, Coard et al., 2004). When examining the effects of racism on African American families, predominantly used measures do not account for the intersectionality of race and gender in racial socialization and experienced racism. Despite African American men being more likely to report greater frequency of racialized encounters, African American women have the poorest mental health outcomes related to race-based stress (Kwate & Goodman, 2015). Furthermore, little is known about how racial socialization is related to well-being and ethnic identifications among African American youth who attend predominantly white institutions of higher education (PWIs). Given that college aged women receive more racial socialization messages, in general, it is likely that women of color (WOC) who attend PWIs also receive more racial socialization messages given their racial-ethnic minority status in these spaces, particularly if they have been previously immersed in homogenous academic environments and neighborhoods (Dahlvig, 2010). Moreover, studies haven’t applied more advanced clustering techniques like latent profile analysis (LPA) to identify subtypes of individuals with varying socialization experiences. To address these gaps, this study sought to identify profiles of WOC who vary across a number of dimensions of racial socialization. A profile approach has the advantage of tapping into the likely heterogeneity of within-group experiences for college-aged WOC. We also considered how young women would differ across the profiles in terms of their ethnic-racial identify (ERI) and resilience.

Method
Using data from the online College Women survey, 246 African American college women between the ages of 18 and 24 years of age at a large public Midwestern University completed Stevenson’s Teenager Experiences of Racialization (TERS)(α=.88), Phinney’s Multigroup Ethnic Identity Measure (MEIM)(α=.82) with specific focus on the affirmation, belonging and commitment factor, and Connor-Davidson’s Resilience scale (CD-RISC) (α=.89).
Results:
We used Mplus 8.1 to conduct LPA to identify profiles and consider mean differences in outcomes across classes. Results suggested that a 3-profile solution was the best fit to these data. Consequently we could identify: (1) women who could be described as having received below average messages from parents (Low Racial Socialization Profile); (2) women who reported having received above average messages across items (High Pride/Prep); and (3) a group who reporting messages regarding having pride in one’s racial group, but low levels of preparation for bias (High Pride; see Figure 1). To better understand/differentiate the women’s experiences, we also tested for profile differences in resilience and ERI. Findings suggested (see Table 1) that the respondents classified as Low Racial Socialization also reported below average and ERI compared to the other two groups. In addition, the highest ERI scores were found for the High Pride profile, although compared to the High Pride/Prep profile, this difference was only marginally significant.

Authors