About this session

Thursday, 3:30 PM - 5:00 PM

Racial-ethnic socialization within White families: content, processes, interventions and downstream consequences

This symposium focuses on the racial-ethnic socialization (RES) practices of White families in the U.S. and Germany and the development of antiracist frameworks in children. The symposium explores families’ RES strategies, from color-evasive to color-conscious approaches, using qualitative methods, and will describe RES within antiracist training programs for early and middle childhood using mixed methods. Kinnard et al. examined White U.S. parents’ RES practices in a Midwestern city. They found that while parents were willing to have conversations about race and racism with their children, conversations infrequently addressed antiracist topics (e.g., white privilege). Kaiser et al. examined White German parents’ RES practices in a superdiverse Western city. Findings suggested four primary themes: silence about race and racism, adherence to white normativity (which perpetuates systemic racism), overt reinforcement of racism, and diversity socialization. Botto et al., examined race-related conversations between parents and children in an antiracist training program in the Midwest. Mixed methods analyses revealed that discussing racial phenotypes and defining key words occurred most frequently; conversations about whiteness were rare, underscoring the importance of parental support in integrating a structural understanding of whiteness into antiracist education. Woolverton & Marks developed and evaluated an antiracism training program for White families. Pre- to post-program RES results increased mother color-conscious RES, which is associated with antiracist beliefs. Overall, studies show that while White parents are discussing race more, there remains a need for interventions to support parents’ integration of antiracist practices (e.g., teaching about systemic racism and white privilege) into their socialization efforts.

Paper #1
Title	“We probably don’t talk about it with those words”: White U.S. American parents’ racial socialization practices
Presenting author	Lauren Kinnard, UCLA, United States

Paper #2
Title	Maintaining whiteness in a superdiverse context: white German parents’ racial-ethnic socialization
Presenting author	Philipp Jugert, University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany

Paper #3
Title	Content and structure of race-related conversations in U.S. white families adopting antiracist parenting practices
Presenting author	Inés Botto, M.Ed., University of Wisconsin-Madison, United States

Paper #4
Title	A Collaborative Caregiver-Child Anti-Racism Program (CCARP): Pilot mixed methods findings
Presenting author	Dr. Genevieve Alice Woolverton, Brigham and Women's Hospital, United States

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Session chairs
Philipp Jugert, University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany; Dr. Genevieve Alice Woolverton, , United States

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