9.6 Racial Socialization in Families
LO 9.6: Discuss how children learn about race and racism.
Children learn about how their culture understands and uses race and racism through socialization (see Chapter 4). Specifically, racial socialization is how children and adults learn about and are taught to make sense of race. Children receive messages about race and racism from various sources: parents, schools, peers, the media, religion, and more. Research confirms that children as young as three know and use racial-ethnic knowledge (Van Ausdale & Feagin, 2001), and that children as young as six have implicit bias related to race (Baron & Banaji, 2006; Mandalaywala et al., 2020). Implicit bias is having a view in favor of or against a social group without having awareness of holding the view.
Several studies have examined how White and Black parents provide racial socialization to their children. Winkler (2012) explains families socialize children about race and racism by talking about these topics, and more passively by making family decisions about media consumption, travel, extracurricular activities, and school curriculum that may expose children to these topics. Moreover, parents’ decisions about neighborhoods and schools influence the amount of exposure their children have to other racial groups.
Winkler (2012) found that Black mothers showed responsive racial socialization. For example, some actively chose to send their children to predominantly Black schools as a means of protecting them from racism and increasing their exposure to positive portrayals of blackness within the schools’ curriculum. In contrast, in Dow’s (2019) study, African American middle-class mothers sought to create an “ideal balance” for their children. For example, if their children did not have many peers or teachers who were Black, then mothers sought out extracurricular activities so that their children would be around other Black people.
Dow (2019) and Winkler (2012) report that Black mothers provided socialization about the risks posed to their children because of their race. For example, Dow (2019) reports that mothers discouraged their Black teenage sons from wearing hoodies as a matter of safety and fretted over how to style their daughters’ hair to prevent discrimination. Black mothers are challenged with helping their children navigate racial double standards so that their children learn to value Black culture and prevent racial harm.
Photo 9.18
Mother Styling Her Daughter’s Hair
Overall, White parents do less racial socialization. When they do, they more often promote colorblind racial ideology rather than an understanding of systemic racism or White privilege (Spanierman, 2022; see Chapter 6). A review of 43 studies from 2000 to 2021, found White parents often teach their children strategies to keep privilege (Nieri et al., 2023). Hagerman (2018) studied affluent White families because their children often grow up to hold influential positions. She observed the families both deliberately and unintentionally discussing race. These affluent White parents used film, the news, or other media to teach their children about race. Dow (2019) reports that the African American mothers in her study also used the media but did so intentionally to provide positive portrayals of African Americans for their children.
Photo 9.19
A Family Watching Television Together Is an Example of the Socialization Process
