Exploring Racial Socialization Processes in Black Families

Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond VA

Investigators

Abstract

The Directorate of Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences offers postdoctoral research fellowships to provide opportunities for recent doctoral graduates to obtain additional training, to gain research experience under the sponsorship of established scientists, and to broaden their scientific horizons beyond their undergraduate and graduate training. Postdoctoral fellowships are further designed to assist new scientists to direct their research efforts across traditional disciplinary lines and to avail themselves of unique research resources, sites, and facilities, including at foreign locations. This postdoctoral fellowship provides an emerging scholar-scientist with an opportunity to investigate the ways in which diverse Black families navigate the racial socialization of their youth in the 21st century. The well-being of Black children in the United States is a matter of grave public health significance. The unfortunate realities of Ferguson, MI, Baltimore, MD, Sanford, FL, Charleston, SC, McKinney, TX, Cleveland, OH, and Chicago, IL, have left many in our society with questions about how to provide youth with the triumvirate "affection, protection, and correction" required to optimize their psychosocial wellbeing. Racial socialization (RS) is a process that has been associated with a number of positive outcomes. However, this research has largely assessed Black mothers (of mother-father households), has predominately used survey data, and has focused on retrospective reporting of RS, limiting our conceptual understanding of a crucial parenting practice. This project addresses these limitations, expanding the study of RS in a number of important ways. The project, entitled the "Black Family Racial Socialization Project" focuses on the development of three studies using both quantitative and qualitative methods, from the perspective of both parents and youth. The primary aim of the first study is to use survey and interview methods to elucidate the ways in which Black families representing a diverse structural spectrum (e.g., extended kin, blended families, LGBT couples) prepare themselves to undertake the RS of their children. The primary aim of the second study is to capture the synergistic and bidirectional nature of RS "in the moment", by using media (e.g., TV scenes, song lyrics, social media posts) to create and code ecologically-valid, family-level racial socialization conversations. The primary aim of the third study is to prospectively assess how Black parents and Black parents-to-be anticipate teaching their children about race "in the future". This study will utilize annual interviews and biannual surveys to monitor how intentions to socialize Black youth (and actual socialization behaviors) change over time, and to elucidate the principal factors that instigate such changes. Together, this research will lead to the development of a more complete conceptual framework that can be tested and instituted in future investigations. In addition, the findings from this research are expected to contribute to the development of effective interventions for Black families.