Examining changes in African American mothers' racial socialization patterns during adolescence: Racial...

Racial socialization is a culturally relevant parenting strategy known to combat the detrimental consequences of racial discrimination for African American youth. Three limitations hinder our developmental understanding of the racial socialization process. Few studies have accounted for the combination of messages that primary caregivers convey, examined how these messages change over time, or investigated how caregivers and adolescents experiences with racial discrimination predict change in the combination of messages conveyed. Given that African American mothers are often the primary socializers in families, the current study used data from a community sample of 497 African American adolescents (52% Female; Time 1 M_age = 15.69; Time 2 M_age = 18.74) and their mothers (Time 1 M_age = 40.43; Time 2 M_age = 43.39) to identify patterns in mothers' racial socialization messages, identify how mothers' racial socialization patterns change from middle to late adolescence, and investigate whether mother- and adolescent-reported racial discrimination contribute to changes in mothers' racial socialization patterns. Latent profile analysis and latent transition analysis were used to examine these questions. Findings revealed three racial socialization patterns: balanced socializers who mistrust, cultural socialization and preparation for bias emphasizers, and low racial socializers. Most mothers were in the low racial socializers group, and most provided similar messages in middle and late adolescence. Mothers' reports of their own racial discrimination influenced the racial socialization messages mothers delivered; however, adolescent-reported racial discrimination did not. These results have implications for community-based interventions designed to help families manage racial discrimination. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).