Relationship of Adolescent Perceptions of Racial Socialization to Racial Identity

Abstract

The reklaonship between racial sociadization attitudes and racial identity stages is the subject of this article, with racial socialization hypothesized as one key variable to link the literatures in childhood racial awareness ad young adult racial identity. A teenage sample was selected to compare measures of racial socialization and racial identity processes. The Scale of Racial Socilizationfor Adolescents and the 50-item Racial Identity Attitude Scale (RIAS) based on Nigrescence theory were administered to 287 African American adolescents between the ages of 14 and 15 years. A principal components analysis was conducted on the RIAS to assess its appropriateness with a younger adolescent population. The factor analytic procedure yielded a three-factor solution with moderately reliablefactors. Thefactors corresponded to the Nigrescence stages of preencounter, immersion, and internalization. Results indicate that specific factors of racial socialization differentially predict all of the racial identiy stages for females and the preencounter and internalization identity stages for males. Findings also suggest that racial socialization is multidimensional, and implications for integrating it with revised multidimensional conceptualizations of racial identity are raised.