Poster #79 - Impact of Parental Racial Socialization and Critical Consciousness on Black Adolescents’ Coping With Racism

• In Event: Poster Session 17

Abstract

In addition to universal stressors, Black adolescents also experience racism-related stressors. The physical and emotional consequences of racism-related stressors can be harmful to Black youth. Critical consciousness (CC) and racial socialization (RS) are culturally relevant factors that have been protective against the negative impact of racism-related stress, with coping as one mechanism that undergirds this protection (Anyiwo et al., 2018; Bañales et al., 2021). Moreover, research has also begun to theorize critical action as a type of racialized coping. Past research has largely examined the impact of critical consciousness and racial socialization on coping separately and yielded mixed results in examining critical action as coping. The present study aimed to further our understanding of how RS messages (i.e., racial pride, racial barriers, egalitarianism, socialization behaviors, self-worth, and negative messages) and perceived inequality (i.e., critical reflection) impact Black adolescents' coping in response to RRS. Regarding coping styles, previous factor analysis of Carver’s (1997) Brief COPE using this sample, supported the existence of five coping styles for this sample: engaged, disengaged, humor, religion, and substance use coping (see Table 1). However, only humor, religious coping, substance use coping, and critical action as coping are examined in this flash talk due to their previously understudied nature. It was hypothesized that high reports of racial pride, racial barriers, egalitarian, RS socialization behaviors, and self-worth messaging would be associated with the endorsement of religious coping and critical action as coping with high reports of perceived inequality serving as a moderator and strengthening the relationships between racial socialization messages, religious coping and critical action. No specific hypotheses were garnered for perceived inequality as a moderator in the relation between these RS messages for substance use or humor coping. Regarding negative RS, it was hypothesized that higher reports of these messages would be associated with a higher endorsement of substance use and humor coping and that negative RS messages would be associated with lessened endorsement of critical action as coping. Perceived inequality was not expected to moderate these results. Analysis was run on secondary data from 201 Black adolescents aged 13-17 years old (mean age=14.92 ± 1.42; 44.7% male; 54.8% female). Survey questions assessed sociodemographic data, RS messaging, perceived inequality, coping behaviors, general perceived stress, and experiences with RRS. Hypotheses were tested using three-step hierarchical linear regressions. Step two of the model suggested that higher reported negative RS messages were associated with substance use coping (β = .53, p< .001), humor coping (β = .25, p< .001), and critical action (β = .43, p<.001). In addition, at step three of the model there was a significant interaction between perceived inequality and negative messages (β = .21, p=.002) (see Figure 1). Overall, our findings support the literature theorizing Black adolescents' use of critical action as coping. In the selected presentation implications of RS messaging for Black adolescents and parents are discussed in addition to considerations for Black adolescent critical consciousness development. Future directions to consider when exploring similar research are also outlined.

Author

• Chandler Golden, Virginia Commonwealth University
  Presenting Author