African American Parents' Beliefs about Race and Discrimination, Socialization Practices, and Their Adolescents' Socioemotional Functioning

这一博士后奖学金的目标是促进青年科学家的专业发展。在这个项目中，PI试图了解非裔美国父母关于种族和歧视的信念的性质，以及这些信念如何影响他们与情感和种族相关的社会化以及他们青少年的社会情感功能。这项研究强调了利用混合方法的重要性，以了解育儿模式如何与非裔美国父母的社会化议程中围绕种族的意义创造有关。研究对象更好地理解了某些父母教养方式如何有助于青少年的各种社会情感技能，特别是在种族融合的学术环境中。这项研究还考察了非洲裔美国父母的不同样本，允许识别育儿经历的模式相似性，尽管有社会经济背景。研究结果在科学界、学者和社区利益相关者中传播，并将推动当前关于非裔美国人家庭中一般和特定种族育儿过程的重要性的文献。此外，这项研究通过让少数族裔本科生和研究生担任研究助理，扩大了未被充分代表的群体在社会科学研究中的参与。通过数据收集和管理，本科生和研究生获得了进行调查研究、访谈的技能，他们还有机会在全国会议上展示这项研究的结果。这些机会有助于少数族裔学生为以后在攻读研究生学位和学术生涯中取得成功做好准备。几种父母社会化的模式表明，父母的信念对父母的养育行为和孩子的结果都很重要。目前，很少有经验性的工作来考察与种族和歧视相关的父母信念在指导一般的和特定于种族的社会化以及随后与非裔美国人家庭中青少年能力的关系中所起的作用。考虑到非洲裔美国人是种族歧视的目标，父母面临着在其种族群体经常被贬低并成为个人/机构种族主义和与种族有关的暴力的受害者的社会中养育子女以取得成功的挑战，这种调查方式特别相关。此外，尽管越来越多的学者研究非裔美国人家庭中的种族社会化，但很少考虑与情感有关的过程在经历和准备与种族有关的经历(例如种族歧视)方面的作用。我们知道种族社会化有助于青少年的整体幸福感和应对歧视的能力，但与种族有关的社会化进程如何独立和/或与其他已知对儿童的社会情感能力有很大影响的一般社会化进程(例如，情感社会化)一起运作仍不清楚。本研究建立在首席研究者先前工作的基础上，采用访谈和问卷调查相结合的方法，考察父母关于种族和歧视的信念的内容，这些信念对他们的情感和种族社会化实践的贡献，以及他们的信念和社会化行为是否存在父母概况。最后，父母的个人资料被作为青少年社交情绪功能的预测指标进行了检验。参与者是300名非裔美国家长、他们的六年级孩子和青少年的老师。这些家庭被跟踪调查了三年。在第一年，家长参加半结构化访谈，学生和老师将完成调查。在接下来的几年里，家长、学生和老师完成在线调查。样本来自密歇根州东南部的三所种族和经济多元化的学校。目前的研究有助于理论和研究，试图了解父母对种族和歧视的信念如何在他们的育儿策略和孩子的发展中发挥作用。这项研究正在制定的框架将为今后的研究和干预提供信息，这些研究和干预旨在了解和促进有助于非裔美国青年积极发展的父母战略。

The goal of this postdoctoral fellowship award is to facilitate the professional development of a young scientist. In this project, the PI seeks to understand the nature of African American parents' beliefs about race and discrimination and how those beliefs impact their emotion- and race-related socialization and their adolescent's socioemotional functioning. This research highlights the importance of utilizing a mixed methods approach to understand how parenting patterns relate to the meaning-making around race in the socialization agenda of African American parents. The research audience gains a better understanding of how certain parenting patterns contribute to a variety of adolescent socioemotional skills, particularly in racially integrated academic settings. The research also examines a diverse sample of African American parents, allowing for the identification of pattern similarities in parenting experiences, despite socioeconomic background. Findings are disseminated among the scientific community, scholars, and community stakeholders and will advance the current literature on the importance of both general and race-specific parenting processing in African American families. In addition, this research broadens the participation of underrepresented groups in social science research by involving minority undergraduate and graduate students as research assistants. Through data collection and management, undergraduate and graduate students gain skills in conducting survey research, interviewing, and they also receive the opportunity to present the findings from this research at national conferences. These opportunities help prepare minority students for later success in the pursuit of graduate degrees and academic careers.Several models of parental socialization suggest that parents' beliefs are important for both parenting behaviors and also for children's outcomes. Currently, there is little empirical work examining the role of parental beliefs associated with race and discrimination in guiding general and race-specific socialization and subsequent relations with adolescent competence in African American families. This line of inquiry is particularly relevant given the history of African Americans being targets of racial discrimination and parents being faced with the challenge of raising their children to be successful in a society in which their racial group is often devalued and made victims of individual/institutional racism and race-related violence. Further, although there is growing scholarship on examining racial socialization among African American families, there is little consideration of the role of emotion-related processes surrounding the experience of and preparation for race-related experiences (e.g., racial discrimination). We know racial socialization contributes to adolescents' overall well-being and ability to cope with discrimination, yet it is still unclear how race-related socialization processes work independently of and/or jointly with other general socialization processes (e.g., emotion socialization) that are known to have great impact on children's socioemotional competence. The current study builds on the principal investigator's previous work by using a mixed-methods approach with both interview and questionnaire data to examine the content of parents' beliefs about race and discrimination, the contribution of these beliefs to their emotion and racial socialization practices, and the existence of parent profiles by their beliefs and socialization behaviors. Finally, parents' profiles are examined as predictors of their adolescents' socioemotional functioning. The participants are 300 African American parents, their 6th grade children, and the adolescents' teachers. Families are followed for three years. In year 1, parents participate in semi-structured interviews and students and teachers will complete surveys. In subsequent years, parents, students, and teachers complete online surveys. The sample is drawn from three racially and economically diverse schools in Southeastern Michigan. The current study contributes to theory and research seeking to understand how parents' beliefs about race and discrimination play a role in their parenting strategies and in their children's development. The framework being developed in this research will inform future research and interventions aimed at understanding and fostering parental strategies that contribute to the positive development of African American youth.