Profiles of ethnic‐racial socialization from family, school, neighborhood, and the Internet: Relations to adolescent outcomes

Abstract

Given that ecological models of development highlight the interacting influences of multiple environments, further research is needed that explores ethnic‐racial socialization from multiple contexts. The current study explores how families, schools, neighborhoods, and the Internet jointly impact academic outcomes, critical consciousness, and psychological well‐being in adolescents, both through socialization messages and experiences with racial discrimination. The research questions were: (a) What profiles of multiple contexts of socialization exist? and (b) How are the different profiles associated with academic outcomes, critical consciousness, and psychological well‐being? The sample consisted of 1,084 U.S. adolescents aged 13–17 (M = 14.99, SD = 1.37; 49% girls) from four ethnic‐racial groups: 25.6% Asian American, 26.3% Black/African American, 25.3% Latinx, and 22.9% White. The participants completed online surveys of socialization and discrimination from four contexts and three types of outcomes: academic outcomes, critical consciousness, and well‐being. A latent profile analysis revealed three profiles: Average, High Discrimination, and Positive School. The Positive School class had the most positive academic outcomes and well‐being. The High Discrimination class reported the highest critical consciousness. Their academic outcomes and well‐being were similar to the Average group. The findings support complexity in perceptions of socialization from different contexts and the associations of socialization with youth outcomes.

The Impact of Daily Discrimination on Sleep/Wake Problem Trajectories Among Diverse Adolescents

“…Recognizing that there is a robust difference in sleep on weekdays as compared to weekends (Roepke & Duffy, 2010;Vitale et al, 2015), this study also considered whether the impact of everyday discrimination on sleep/wake problems would differ by the day of the week. It is possible that adolescents had stronger, immediate responses to discriminatory incidents on weekdays coupled with stronger recovery (i.e., decrease in subsequent daytime dysfunction), because school is also a socializing forum in which adolescents obtain social support (Byrd & Ahn, 2020). On the other hand, adolescents may be less susceptible to discrimination on weekends yet experienced a lagged impact of discrimination (i.e., increase in subsequent daytime dysfunction).…”

Critical civic engagement in Black college students: Interplay between discrimination, centrality, and preparation for bias.

“…The authors were also interested in how adolescents in these profiles differed on key outcomes such as dimensions of critical consciousness and civic engagement. The authors found that the High Discrimination profile, characterized by high levels of discrimination across home, school, neighborhood, and online contexts, along with frequent ethnic-racial socialization messages (including preparation for bias), reported the greatest interpersonal, communal, and political engagement of all profiles (Byrd & Ahn, 2020). Taken together, youth participation in CCE is likely motivated by youths' understanding of racial inequality, which is shaped, in part, by preparation for bias messages provided by parents as well as their experiences of racial discrimination and racial centrality (Anyiwo et al, 2018).…”

Black Emotions Matter: Understanding the Impact of Racial Oppression on Black Youth’s Emotional Development

“…For instance, racial discrimination heightens the importance youth place on being Black as part of their identity (i.e., centrality or pride in being Black; Butler‐Barnes et al., 2019), contributes to lower positive affect about being Black (low private regard), contributes to greater belief that others think negatively about Black people (low public regard; Seaton et al., 2009), and disrupts normative racial identity developmental processes such as exploring and committing to one’s racial identity (Douglass & Umaña‐Taylor, 2017). Regarding racial oppression and social cognition, in a study utilizing a person‐centered approach to multiple contexts of socialization, Black adolescents who had the highest scores on receiving messages about race and experiencing racial discrimination demonstrated the greatest social cognition about social inequality (i.e., critical reflection; Byrd & Ahn, 2020). Finally, in a study among high achieving Black high school girls, findings demonstrated that the experience of navigating issues of diversity within school was associated with Black adolescent girls’ demonstration of autonomy in the assertion of their own racial ideologies and expressions of their Blackness in ways that were accommodating instead of assimilating (Marsh, 2013).…”