Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Johnson, Natasha C

Titel

You Must Work Twice as Hard for Half as Much: Racial Socialization, Racial Identity, and Racism Awareness in Adolescence

Ort / Verlag

ProQuest Dissertations & Theses

Erscheinungsjahr

2020

Quelle

ProQuest Dissertations & Theses A&I

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• Scholars who examine racism at the individual level often focus on experiences of racial discrimination, or interpersonal racism. This incredibly frequent experience for Black adolescents—that is, occurring for over 90% of Black adolescents annually (Pachter & Garcia-Coll, 2009)—is associated with social, psychological, and academic consequences (for review, see Rivas-Drake et al., 2014). These racially discriminatory acts may be particularly impactful as cognitive abilities increase during adolescence (Steinberg, 2005), aligning with adolescents’ ability to understand the complexities of race and racism (Jones et al., 2020). Early adolescence is a developmental period characterized by cognitive maturation, social perspective-taking, and identity exploration (Quintana, 1994; Phinney, 1998; Steinberg, 2005). Maturation in race-based cognitions and increases in racial discrimination experiences during adolescence make this developmental period a critical time to investigate Black adolescents’ awareness of racism and the underlying mechanisms of their perceptions of racial discrimination. Critical consciousness refers to the process by which marginalized communities analyze, navigate, and challenge systems of oppression (Freire, 1970; Seider et al., 2017). Racism awareness is a component of critical consciousness, such that it captures Black adolescents’ understanding of racial oppression. The central analytical theme the dissertation studies is to unpack Black adolescents’ understanding of systemic level attributions to the racial performance gap between Black and White students. Situating the examination of Black adolescents’ understanding of racism within the school context is important because school—including relationships with peers and teachers, and exposure to information—is a primary context that shapes adolescents’ understanding of themselves and the world (for a review, see Eccles & Roeser, 2011). In this dissertation, I examined Black early adolescents’ (Grades 6 and 8) understanding of the systemic factors related to racial educational disparities for Black youth (e.g., racism awareness). I examined how racial context (i.e., racial socialization, racial identity, racial discrimination) shapes Black adolescents’ awareness of racism and perceptions of discrimination. The sample included 271 sixth-grade adolescents (Mage = 11.11, SD = 0.42) and 196 eighth-grade adolescents (Mage = 13.14, SD = 0.46), all of whom self-identified as “African American/Black.” In Study 1, results from a cross-lagged panel analysis revealed that racial barriers messages and racial public regard in Grade 6 positively predicted racism awareness two years later. Adolescents’ racism awareness in Grade 6 was not associated with racial identity or racial socialization in Grade 8. In Study 2, racism awareness moderated the association between racial barriers messages and racial discrimination, and the association between behavioral messages and racial discrimination. Black adolescents who received more racial barriers and behavioral messages and had higher levels of racism awareness perceived more instances of discrimination than their peers who received fewer racial barriers and behavioral messages. Limitations and future directions are discussed.