Collaborative Research: Socialization Competencies and Youth Outcomes in Response to Racial Violence

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Given the historical and persistent crisis of racial discrimination and violence enacted against Black communities in America, Black parents have unique considerations to prepare their children to cope with potential racial bias and discrimination in schools, neighborhoods, and community settings. Yet, there is less research on how parents' race-related experiences influence their competency in transmitting information to their children about processing and coping with widely publicized instances of racial discrimination and violence. This project will examine how Black parents perceive racially violent incidents in their immediate communities, their own interpersonal experiences with racial discrimination, their parenting practices around racial socialization, and the coping strategies parents use to impact their child’s academic and well-being outcomes. The findings will provide a more comprehensive understanding of the ways racial/ethnic minority families' navigate oppressive social contexts and support the positive development of their children. Recent widely publicized incidents of police brutality highlight the intersecting systems of inequality, injustice, and racism in the United States, elucidating a need for research documenting how Black families process and respond to such events. This study is a longitudinal, mixed methodological investigation of Black families' vulnerability to or resilience against marginalization, focusing on parenting practices and adolescent developmental trajectories. The three-year project involves two phases of research with Black parents and adolescents: (1) annual survey data to examine the influence of parents' race-related experiences and racial socialization competencies on adolescent outcomes, and (2) in-depth qualitative analysis exploring parents’ perceptions of the factors that shape their parenting practices and racial socialization competencies. The findings will provide a more comprehensive understanding of how Black families navigate racially oppressive social contexts and shed light on family processes for racial/ethnic minorities in the U.S. more broadly.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.