About this session

Saturday, 10:20 AM - 11:50 AM

Innovative Antiracist Interventions to Curb The Whiteness Pandemic Across Development

The Whiteness Pandemic refers to the intergenerational transmission of the culture of Whiteness, characterized by racial silence, fragility, and passivity in the face of racial injustice (Ferguson et al., 2022). Families and schools are chief promotive contexts for antiracism among White children and youth, and Hazelbaker et al.’s (2022) developmental model holds that antiracist socialization begins with understanding one’s White identity aided by parent-child discussions of race/racism in accurate, explicit ways using color- and power-conscious language (also called ethnic-racial socialization, ERS). Later in development, the focus shifts to understanding and actively opposing systems of racial oppression. This symposium will highlight three innovative antiracist interventions for White U.S. children, youth, and parents aimed at curbing the Whiteness pandemic across development and contexts (family/peer, physical/virtual).

Paper 1’s qualitative observational data will provide promising evidence that White parents can have antiracist color-conscious discussions with older children when provided with guidance on how to do so, although some will resist.

Paper 2 presents quantitative evidence that White college students who receive a video-based online bystander intervention are more than twice as likely to confront racist online posts as students who receive an implicit bias video-based intervention.

Paper 3 shares lessons learned in designing and implementing a White racial identity development (WRID) group for mothers, including the importance of cross-race and same-race team collaboration.

Paper 4 presents RCT findings for CARPE DIEM, a virtual antiracist parenting intervention targeting ERS and WRID showing general and component-specific efficacy among White mothers of young children.

Paper #1
Title	Discussions of Racism Among White Parent-Child Dyads: A Qualitative Analysis
Presenting author	Dr. Jamie L. Abaied, Ph.D., Department of Psychological Science, University of Vermont, United States

Paper #2
Title	Developing and Testing a Video-based Intervention to Increase White Bystander Confrontations of Online Racism
Presenting author	Dr. Noelle Hurd, Ph.D., Department of Psychology, University of Virginia, United States

Paper #3
Title	Catalyzing White Racial Identity Development: The Process of Designing and Implementing a Mothers’ “Self-Reflection Group”
Presenting author	Lauren Eales, UCLA Semel Institute, United States

Paper #4
Title	RCT Findings from a Virtual Antiracist Parenting Intervention for White Mothers of Young White Children
Presenting author	Gail M. Ferguson, Ph.D., Institute of Child Development, University of Minnesota, United States

View all paper details

Session chair
Gail M. Ferguson, Ph.D., Institute of Child Development, University of Minnesota, United States

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