Parenting Despite Discrimination: Does Racial Identity Matter?

Background: Previous research suggests that parents' characteristics and race-related experiences shape the racial socialization messages they give their children. Parents' beliefs about race may also relate to how they interpret and respond to race-related stressors. The current study drew on the Sociohistorical Integrative Model for the Study of Stress in Black Families to examine the moderating roles of gender and racial identity subscales (i.e., racial centrality, private regard, and public regard) on the relations between race-related stressors (i.e., personal, vicarious, and anticipated racial discrimination) and racial socialization. Method: Path analyses were conducted in Mplus 8.2 using online survey data from a national sample of 567 African American parents of adolescents. Results: There were seven significant three-way interactions. Racial centrality and gender moderated the relations between both personal and vicarious racial discrimination and each racial socialization message. Private regard and gender moderated the relations between personal racial discrimination and preparation for bias and between vicarious racial discrimination and cultural socialization. Public regard and parent gender moderated the relation between personal racial discrimination and cultural socialization. Conclusions: The findings highlighted that parents' experiences of personal, vicarious, and anticipated racial discrimination have different relations with their racial socialization messages. In addition, they highlighted that racial identity and parent gender are related to the type of racial socialization messages African American parents who are exposed to race-related stressors give their children.