About this poster

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Panel information
Panel 4. Families, Parenting, and Relationships

Abstract

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A growing body of literature highlights the potential for white families to support their children’s racial (and, specifically, antiracist) learning from the earliest stages (Hazelbaker et al., 2020; Belizaire et al., 2023). While parents of color in the U.S. are confronted with the necessity to address race, white parents have tended towards an avoidant and color-evasive approach based in beliefs that addressing race with children is not developmentally appropriate, harms children, or cultivates racism (Abaied and Perry, 2021; Spanierman, 2022; Vittrup, 2018). Early childhood is a critical developmental period for bias prevention, and when parents avoid these conversations, it contributes to the development of implicit racial bias (Skinner et al, 2017). . Despite documented misconceptions and hesitance among white parents, some are willing to ‘go the distance’ to gain skills and strategies to support the process. What motivates some white parents to pursue these commitments in the context of their own family histories, societal resistance, personal demands as parents, and white privilege?

To answer these questions, we explore data from a pilot test of our recently developed Antiracist Parenting program, a 6-session, cohort-style parent training that aims to encourage intentional, meaningful, and effective discussions of race and racism within white families with young children. The training centers around race awareness education for parents and the use of children's books and arts-based activities to scaffold developmentally appropriate parent-child conversations about race. The program aims to interrupt bias and prejudice formation among children and to facilitate a family culture of addressing difficult topics, specifically race and racism.

Participants who enrolled in the program were parents (N=19), ages 31-41 years old with children ages 3-6 years. A majority of the sample identified as white (94.4%) and female (17) from predominantly white Midwestern cities. Parents attended weekly two-hour sessions on weekday evenings. In addition, parents completed weekly process evaluation questionnaires and at-home practice activities, participated in a focus group, and completed a post-course survey. Drawing from these multiple data sources, we assessed parents’ motivations for engaging in conversations regarding race prior to participation and during the early phases of the program.

Using qualitative descriptive analysis, we identified four main motivations that parents described: gaining competence and confidence, parental responsibility, developmentally appropriate methods, and continuing their antiracist journey. One parent described several of these motivations during the focus group:

“I found myself many times being like we need to start this early and I don’t know what is the right way to have this conversation with my kids. I know the way my parents did it, color blindness and everyone is equal and….a rainbow didn’t quite cut it. I would like some tools for how to talk about this with my kids but its also like there is so much more and its difficult to know how much to share and in what ways to share it.”

Motivations for enrollment included other factors as well, such as the impact of their own upbringing, including a sense that talking about race was taboo, exposure to a color-evasive approach, and a consequential lack of knowledge.

The findings contribute to a larger conversation on supporting white parents’ antiracist socialization practices. Parents’ stated motivations–including readiness and willingness to engage in race conscious conversations with their children–highlight the need for building parental knowledge and providing communal support. Understanding the motivations of white parents who select into an antiracist parenting training offers important insight as we continue to develop programs and interventions to address racial socialization of white children.

Author information

Author	Role
Kay Byer, University of Wisconsin-Madison	Presenting author
Margaret L. Kerr, University of Wisconsin-Madison, United States	Non-presenting author
Inés Botto, University of Wisconsin-Madison, United States	Non-presenting author
Linnea Drott, University of Wisconsin-Madison, United States	Non-presenting author
Larissa G. Duncan, University of Wisconsin-Madison	Non-presenting author

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