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7.10: Parenting and Ethnic-Racial Socialization

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    324902
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    A critical function of families of color is to prepare children for a racialized world, a process known as ethnic-racial socialization (Umaña-Taylor and Hill 2020). This involves ‘cultural socialization,’ or teaching children about their cultural heritage, history, and traditions. This also involves ‘preparation for bias,’ a practice of teaching children about potential discrimination and how to cope with it. Additionally, this involves ‘promotion of mistrust’ that warns children to be cautious in interracial interactions. And finally, this involves ‘egalitarianism’ wherein the similarity of all people and downplaying race are emphasized.

    The strategies parents employ are shaped by their own experiences and the specific challenges their children are likely to face. For example, middle-class Black parents, aware that their children may still be profiled by police, often engage in intense preparation for bias, a phenomenon dubbed “The Talk” (Hughes et al. 2006). This micro-level interactionist process is a direct response to macro-level structural racism.


    7.10: Parenting and Ethnic-Racial Socialization is shared under a CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by LibreTexts.

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