About this poster

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Panel information
Panel 4. Families, Parenting, and Relationships

Abstract

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Asian American parents play a key role in helping their children navigate their racialized experiences (i.e., racial socialization; RS). Less is known about Asian American families’ RS approaches during middle-childhood, a critical period when children are developing their racial-ethnic identity (REI) and interacting with diverse peers. Drawing on a diverse sample of Asian American families, we examine how parents navigate RS and how children make sense of their parents’ RS efforts.

Parent and child semi-structured remote interviews were completed with 69 Asian American parents (Mage = 42.4, SD = 5.0, 78% female), and their children (Mage = 8.9, SD = 1.9; 63% girls) between March-December 2022. The sample was ethnically diverse (e.g., Vietnamese, Indian); a majority of children were multiracial (n = 28) or multiethnic (n = 15). Families resided in diverse regions across the U.S. Most parents were 1.5 or 2nd+ generation (67%); a majority of children were U.S.-born (99%). Parents were asked about their race-related beliefs and experiences, and their RS approaches with their children. Children were asked about their REI and race-related knowledge. Using a thematic analysis approach, a team of Asian American scholars developed codes inductively and deductively; to date, two-thirds of the data have been coded.

We highlight preliminary themes: Current Events. Many parents talked about how their RS shifted in response to anti-Asian hate attacks during the COVID-19 pandemic (e.g., “It's tough because you want to teach them to stick up for themselves, but you want to be safe too … It's terrifying to be an Asian woman these days because you just don't know how people are gonna react”), and that conversations about racism with their children were sparked by the Black Lives Matter protests. Attunement to Needs. Explicit conversations about racism were often attuned to their children’s needs (e.g., age, context). Racial Narratives. Some parents described how contending with racial narratives, like the model minority myth, informed their RS (e.g., “Kids always called me a nerd… And then whenever I failed, I took it really hard. I personalized it. I wish there was a teacher, or if my parents… [had] talked to me about it, I would have connected it to something bigger than myself so that I wouldn't internalize it. And that's what I'm trying to do with [my child] too.”). Limit RS. Some parents preferred to limit race-related conversations because they did not want their children to fixate on race (e.g., “I don't want [racism] to be the primary thing that she focuses on…I want her to be proud of her background and have tools, but it's not something that I want circulating in the background of her daily life”).

Some children referenced conversations with their parents as they talked about their REI, and understanding of race (e.g., “My mom once told me a story. She went out with some people and they said that [my mom] eats like barbarians. So that's mean. Because they're Filipino and they eat with their hands”). Similar to prior studies, many children referenced examples of historical Black leaders (e.g., Martin Luther King Jr.) as they described their understandings of racism, potentially reflecting how Asian American children are often learning about race and racism from a Black-and-White frame.

Next steps include conducting axial coding to determine final themes and identifying the contextual determinants (e.g., immigration-related experiences, neighborhood) that lead parents to take different RS approaches (e.g., explicit vs. avoidant conversations) with their children. Findings may illuminate how support for Asian American parents can be differentiated depending on these contextual determinants of RS.

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