McKenna Freeman’s research while affiliated with Miami University and other places

Research has examined racial socialization practices within families of color, but less is known regarding what White parents teach their children about race and/or racism. To explore White racial socialization processes, we interviewed 30 White parents of White children ages 7–17 years living in the Midwest. Using thematic analysis, we identified 22 themes organized into four domains: Content of conversations, factors to consider in socialization, developmental differences, and White identity/privilege. A majority of parents reported conversations about current or historic racial events, while relatively few also reported speaking specifically about systemic racism and microaggressions. Parents viewed adolescents as better able to handle difficult topics than children. Findings contribute to theoretical frameworks and may inform the development of educational resources.

Emerging literature examines implications of parental socialisation of positive affect (PA) for children's socio‐emotional functioning, though little is known about predictors of parental PA socialisation behaviours in diverse families around the world. Based on the literature that suggests that parental cognitions (Okagaki & Bingham, 2005) and their own mood state contribute to their parenting (Dix & Meunier, 2009), we examined two parent‐related factors (parental beliefs regarding PA and depressive symptoms) as predictors of parental responses to their adolescents' PA in an urban middle‐class sample of mothers and fathers from India (N = 267; 40.4% mothers). Parents completed measures of their PA‐related beliefs, depressive symptomatology, and their responses to adolescents' PA at two‐time points, 5 months apart. Parental PA‐related beliefs showed low stability and depressive symptoms showed moderate stability across time. There were concurrent bivariate associations between parental PA‐related beliefs and their socialisation behaviours, though these relations did not hold in multivariate path analyses across time. Parental depressive symptoms at T1 inversely predicted family savouring at T2 and positively predicted dampening at T2. These findings provide the first line of evidence indicating that parental cognitions and their own mood contribute to their emotion‐related parenting behaviours in India.

Because Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) first emerged in China, anti-Asian rhetoric has led to significant hate crimes toward Asian Americans. Focusing primarily on East and Southeast Asian Americans in the majority-White Midwest, the present study addressed two research questions: (a) Are the frequency or type of incidents of ethnic-racial discrimination (ERD) among East and Southeast Asian Americans different during COVID-19 than those experienced prior to COVID-19? and (b) To what extent is ethnic identity a protective factor in the face of ERD? A sample of 380 (44% women, Mage = 39.39 and SD = 3.24) East and Southeast Asian American adults recruited through Facebook groups of the Ohioan Asian American community responded to an online survey about ethnic identity, direct and indirect ERD—both currently and retrospectively about experiences before the pandemic—and rated their current depression and anxiety symptoms. Repeated measures analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) indicate higher reports of both direct and indirect ERD during the pandemic compared to the time prior to the pandemic. Both direct and indirect ERD during the pandemic were associated with higher levels of anxiety and depression. Further, results indicated that ethnic identity moderated some of these associations, though in an unexpected direction: At higher levels of ethnic identity, the effect of ERD on anxiety was stronger than at lower levels of ethnic identity. The findings are discussed in the context of anti-Asian rhetoric during the pandemic, with important implications for the mental health of Asian Americans.

Conversations around race have come to the forefront of public discourses in the United States with incidents of police brutality leading to movements such as Black Lives Matter and its opposition, All Lives Matter. Although there is substantial psychological literature focusing on racial attitudes and intergroup relations, much of this research is experimental, failing to capture diverse and evolving viewpoints of people in the United States. In the present study, our aim was to understand folk definitions and diverse perspectives about the role of race in the United States in participants’ own words. We thematically analyzed submissions to The Race Card Project (n = 913), a publicly available platform, and responses from a sample of college students describing perspectives on race (n = 1092). A total of 27 identified themes were organized in four domains: opinions about race, race-based interactions, race and identity, and emotions. Opinions about race ranged from color-blind ideology to racial equality, race as divisive or providing community, and excessive focus on race. References were made to historic and current race relations, assumptions based on skin color, prejudice and discrimination, White privilege, and “reverse racism.” These findings contribute to evolving scholarly understanding of race in the United States, with implications for informing initiatives to promote race relations and reduce experiences of discrimination for individuals of color.