Objective
The purpose of the current study was to use the integrative model for the Study of Stress in Black American Families to test whether a set of maternal race‐related stressors were related to adolescents' academic and behavioral outcomes through maternal depressive symptoms and involved‐vigilant parenting. Gender differences in these relations were tested also.
Background
Research on race‐related stressors has predominantly focused on the role of personal racial discrimination experiences on individual outcomes. Yet parents' vicarious and anticipated racial discrimination also may be related to parents' psychological functioning, family processes, and adolescent development.
Method
Path analyses were conducted in Mplus 8.2 using online survey data from a national sample of 317 African American mothers of adolescents to examine direct and indirect relations between maternal personal, vicarious, and anticipated racial discrimination, and adolescents' problem behaviors, grades, and academic persistence.
Results
Maternal personal racial discrimination experiences were positively related to adolescents' internalizing and externalizing problem behaviors directly and indirectly through maternal depressive symptoms and involved‐vigilant parenting. Anticipated racial discrimination and vicarious racial discrimination were indirectly related to better adolescent outcomes through positive relations with maternal involved‐vigilant parenting.
Conclusion
Maternal personal, vicarious, and anticipated racial discrimination act differently in relation to adolescent competencies in African American families.
The development of anti‐racist ideology in adolescence and emerging adulthood is informed by parent socialization, parenting style, and cross‐race friendships. This study used longitudinal, multi‐reporter survey data from White youth and their parents in Maryland to examine links between parents' racial attitudes when youth were in eleventh grade in 1996 (N = 453; 52% female; Mage = 17.12) and the youths' anti‐racist ideology (acknowledgment of anti‐Black discrimination and support for affirmative action) 1 year after high school in 1998. This study also examined whether these associations varied based on authoritative parenting and the number of cross‐race friendships. Positive parent racial attitudes toward racially and ethnically minoritized populations predicted higher anti‐racist ideology in the independent contexts of more cross‐race friendships and low authoritative parenting.
Background: Previous research suggests that parents' characteristics and race-related experiences shape the racial socialization messages they give their children. Parents' beliefs about race may also relate to how they interpret and respond to race-related stressors. The current study drew on the Sociohistorical Integrative Model for the Study of Stress in Black Families to examine the moderating roles of gender and racial identity subscales (i.e., racial centrality, private regard, and public regard) on the relations between race-related stressors (i.e., personal, vicarious, and anticipated racial discrimination) and racial socialization. Method: Path analyses were conducted in Mplus 8.2 using online survey data from a national sample of 567 African American parents of adolescents. Results: There were seven significant three-way interactions. Racial centrality and gender moderated the relations between both personal and vicarious racial discrimination and each racial socialization message. Private regard and gender moderated the relations between personal racial discrimination and preparation for bias and between vicarious racial discrimination and cultural socialization. Public regard and parent gender moderated the relation between personal racial discrimination and cultural socialization. Conclusions: The findings highlighted that parents' experiences of personal, vicarious, and anticipated racial discrimination have different relations with their racial socialization messages. In addition, they highlighted that racial identity and parent gender are related to the type of racial socialization messages African American parents who are exposed to race-related stressors give their children.
Public Significance StatementThe messages African American mothers and fathers give adolescents about race are shaped by their own experiences with racial discrimination, as well as their observations and fears of racial discrimination. In addition, parents' message about race differ by their racial identity and gender.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.