Socialization is a multifaceted process based on the goals and aspirations guiding adults in transmitting values and norms. This process is co-active and dynamic and varies greatly depending on contexts and cultural identities (Lerner & Callina, Citation2014; Overton, Citation2007). Families play a key role in socializing children’s behaviors, emotions, beliefs, and attitudes. Parents’ socialization practices, parenting styles, and approaches to addressing challenging issues related to their own social group identity (e.g., race, gender, sexuality), have implications for children’s identity development, social experiences, academic attainment, health, and well-being (Grusec & Hastings, Citation2014; Hughes et al., Citation2015, Citation2006; Priest et al., Citation2014).
The collection of papers in this issue captures diverse approaches to family-level socialization beliefs and practices. Cumulatively, these papers provide an integrative and novel contribution to the study of family socialization, one that highlights similarities and differences in strategies and processes across social-group identities and socialization topics.
In the first paper, Glover and Li query Black emerging adults’ experiences with racial microaggressions, focusing on racial coping socialization strategies as a buffer for their psychological well-being and beliefs in the malleability of intelligence. Varner, Holloway, and Scott link Black parents’ socialization practices to their adolescents’ racial discrimination experiences and internalizing and externalizing behaviors. In the third paper, Hilliard and Liben observe mother-child dyads discussing another person’s reliance on gender stereotypes to assign children to camp activities; they report links between conversational patterns and sexist attitudes. In the fourth paper, Simon and Farr examine how adoption socialization operates with multiple diverse identities in families with same-sex parents and/or transracial adoptions. In the fifth paper, McClain and Mares examine Black parents’ perceptions of the roles of race-related content in youth media and ethnic-racial identity on racial-ethnic socialization.
The authors in this issue represent perspectives from the fields of communication, human development and family sciences, and multiple subfields of psychology, including developmental, applied developmental, and community psychology. The research across the collected papers represents families with diverse identities (e.g., race and ethnicity, gender, and adoption status), socialization strategies (e.g., coping socialization, vigilant parenting, and addressing biases), and topics (e.g., media and discrimination experiences). The papers also represent diversity across 1) life stages of participants, including children, adolescents, young adults, and parents; 2) youth-focused outcomes, such as social group attitudes, psychological well-being, internalizing and externalizing behavior, and academic functioning; and 3) methodology, including retrospective accounts, parent-report, longitudinal samples, and direct observation. Together, these papers apply novel perspectives to examining family-level socialization processes within contexts.
This issue reveals contrasts and similarities in results across observational methods and survey methods. We uncover contextual characteristics of socialization for groups and dimensions that are less commonly examined in family socialization (e.g., Black emerging adults, gender dyads in Black families, transracial adoptees, Lesbian and Gay headed-households, and socialization with the use of media). In doing so, the authors draw conclusions about strategies that parents use as methods for socialization (socialization behaviors, beliefs, and verbal socialization). Thus, a strength of this issue is that family-based socialization is presented as multifaceted. We also find interesting parallels in observational and survey-based research, quota-based sampling, and community-based recruitment.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
References
- Grusec, J. E., & Hastings, P. D. (Eds.). (2014). Handbook of socialization: Theory and research. Guilford Publications.
- Hughes, D., Harding, J., Niwa, E. Y., Toro, J. D., & Way, N. (2015). Racial socialization and racial discrimination as intra-and intergroup processes. In A. Rutland, D. Nesdale, & C. S. Brown (Eds.), The Wiley handbook of group processes in children and adolescents (pp. 241–268). Wiley.
- Hughes, D., Rodriguez, J., Smith, E. P., Johnson, D. J., Stevenson, H. C., & Spicer, P. (2006). Parents’ racial/ethnic socialization practices: A review of research and agenda for future study. Developmental Psychology, 42(5) , 747–770. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1037/0012-1649.42.5.747
- Lerner, R. M., & Callina, K. S. (2014). The study of character development: Towards tests of a relational developmental systems model. Human Development, 57(6) , 322–346. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1159/000368784
- Overton, W. F. (2007). Developmental psychology: Philosophy, concepts, and methodology. In W. Damon (Editor-in-Chief) & R. M. Lerner (Eds.), Handbook of child psychology: Vol. 1. Theoretical models of human development (5th ed., pp. 107–187). Wiley.
- Priest, N., Walton, J., White, F., Kowal, E., Baker, A., & Paradies, Y. (2014). Understanding the complexities of ethnic-racial socialization processes for both minority and majority groups: A 30-year systematic review. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 43(B) , 139–155. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijintrel.2014.08.003