About this poster

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Panel information
Panel 4. Families, Parenting, and Relationships

Abstract

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The United States, and the world, is experiencing a historic rise in antisemitism. The current acute crisis in antisemitic hate in the US is overlaid on top of a pre-existing dramatic increase in antisemitism across the past decade. Antisemitic attacks include vandalism of Jewish institutions and private property, and physical and verbal assaults on Jewish adults and children. Numerous studies have shown that experiencing bias and hate is detrimental to mental and physical health and can spillover to impact family relationships. One way that experiences of hate and bias can impact family relationships is through how parents socialize ethnic-racial identity (ERI) in their children. ERI broadly refers to the meaning and personal significance of race-ethnicity to an individual. Ethnic identity is a set of ideas about one’s own ethnic group membership in terms of role behaviors, traits, values, styles, customs, traditions, and languages. An understanding of ERI is a critical component of a sense of self. Ethnic identity is primarily socialized within the family by teaching children about their ethnic and cultural background and instilling pride. Within the context of hate, socialization of ERI also includes preparing children for potential bias against one’s ethnic-racial group and promoting mistrust or caution of outgroup members. ERI is thought to be a primary resilience or protective factor in studies of racism, racial discrimination, and psychological adjustment and well-being. Thus, examining ethnic racial socialization is particularly important to understand for minoritized children currently being raised in the context of rising hate. Surprisingly, we know of no study that has quantitatively examined the associations among ERI in Jewish parents, their experience of antisemitism, and socialization of ERI in their children.

In September of 2023 we began assessing Jewish parents (n = 81) with a residential child between the ages of 2 and 18, data collection is ongoing with a goal of 350 families. Parents completed the Multi-group Ethnic Identity Measure (Phinney, 1992) and the Parental Ethnic-Racial Socialization Scale (Tran et al., 2018). The Phinney scale was modified to specifically refer to Jewish identity and the Tran scale was modified for parental self-report. Parents also completed the Generalized Antisemitism Scale (Allington et al., 2022). This scale assesses non-Jews’ antisemitic beliefs. This scale was modified to assess the extent to which parents view people in the US to hold a range of antisemitic beliefs.

Most parents reported that in the past 5 years antisemitism has gotten worse (48.1%) or much worse (40.7%), with every parent having experienced antisemitism. The modal age parents begin talking to their children about antisemitism is between 6 and 9 (37.5%). Parents who viewed Americans as holding more antisemitic views reported their Jewish ethnic identity as more central to their identity (r = .23*). However, viewing Americans as more antisemitic was associated with greater engagement in private expressions of Jewish ethnic identity (r = .25*) and fewer public displays of Jewish identity (r = -.64**). Parents beliefs of antisemitism in Americans also impacted their socialization of Jewish identity in their children. Specifically, viewing Americans as more highly antisemitic was associated with greater self-reported cultural socialization (r = .30**), as well as socialization of mistrust of others (r = .23*) and a trend toward greater preparation for bias (r = .22+).

This represents the first quantitative investigation of Jewish parents’ ERI, their experiences of antisemitism, and socialization of ERI. Preliminary findings reveal antisemitic experiences to be pervasive and the extent to which parents’ view antisemitism in broader US society to be associated with parental identity and socialization of identity.

Author information

Author	Role
Leah Hibel, University of California, Davis	Presenting author
Eva Anderson, University of California, Davis, United States	Non-presenting author
Yael Teff-Seker, University of California, Davis, United States	Non-presenting author

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