Critical Civic Engagement in Black College Students: Interplay Between Discrimination, Centrality, and Preparation for Bias

• In Event: Poster Session 07
  In Poster Session: PS 07 Topic -Diversity, Equity & Social Justice

Abstract

Black peoples have a history of facing interpersonal discrimination and systemic inequalities (Anyiwo et al., 2018); these racial injustices are pervasive to this day and their impact on youths’ physical and psychological functioning is unquestionable (Paradies et al., 2015). Critical civic engagement refers to a set of actions performed by members of the Black community to combat and cope with racial inequities (Hope & Spencer, 2017), and these civically engaged actions may be oriented towards creating communal, political or interpersonal change (i.e., change among one’s social networks; Aldana et al., 2018). While discrimination and various aspects of ethnic-racial identity are well-known drivers of civic engagement (Anyiwo et al., 2018), it is less well-known how parental preparation for bias messages, which involve messages teaching youth how to cope with unequal social systems (Hughes et al., 2006), may work in concert with discrimination and a strong ethnic-racial identity to predict greater interpersonal, communal, and political forms of civic engagement. It is likely that contextual (discrimination), intraindividual (identity), and familial (preparation for bias socialization) factors work together in complex ways in predicting greater civic engagement. Understanding the factors that lead to greater levels of interpersonal, communal, and political civic engagement is also crucial in trying to both create a more equitable society and when trying to help Black youth cope with the inequities they are currently subjected to.
To address these gaps in the literature, this study uses a sample of 186 monoracial Black college students (Mage = 18.72, 86% female) to examine how discrimination, ethnic-racial centrality (i.e., importance of one’s ethnic-racial group membership; Umaña-Taylor et al., 2014), and preparation for bias socialization interact to differentially predict interpersonal, communal, and political forms of civic engagement. We hypothesized that greater discrimination and ethnic-racial centrality would be associated with higher levels of critical civic engagement broadly. Further, we hypothesized that preparation for bias messages and centrality would strengthen the association between discrimination experiences and civic engagement. Results from three separate regression models, one per type of civic engagement, indicated that discrimination experiences were the sole driver of greater political change action (see Table 1), while discrimination and centrality were associated with greater communal action. With respect to interpersonal action, a complex 3-way interaction was observed where discrimination experiences were associated with greater interpersonal civic action, except in conditions where centrality was low and preparation for bias messages were high – and vice versa (see Figure 1). Findings broadly highlight how discrimination experiences are associated with multiple types of civic engagement. Results also point to specific intrapersonal factors (i.e. ethnic-racial centrality) impacting community-level civic engagement, and complex associations between discrimination, centrality, and preparation for bias predicting interpersonal civic action such that too much centrality/ too many preparation for bias messages without enough of the other factor eliminate associations between discrimination and interpersonal action. Interventionists, community leaders, and community-engaged scholars should attend to these important contextual (discrimination), familial (preparation for bias) and intraindividual (centrality) factors when attempting to support interpersonally, communally, and politically-engaged Black student activists.

Authors

• N. Keita Christophe, McGill University
  Presenting Author

• Michelle Y. Martin Romero, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
  Non-Presenting Author

• Elan Hope, Policy Research Associates
  Non-Presenting Author

• Gabriela Livas Stein, University of North Carolina at Greensboro
  Non-Presenting Author