title: Minority Parents' Perspectives on Racial Socialization and School Readiness in the Early Childhood Period.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To describe how minority parents help their young children navigate issues of race and racism and discuss implications this racial socialization may have for school readiness.
  
  
  METHODS
  Sixteen focus groups were conducted among 114 African American, English language-primary Latino, Spanish language-primary Latino, and Korean language-primary Korean parents of children ages 0 to 4 years old. Transcripts were coded for major themes and subsequently compared across the 4 language-ethnicity groups. Parents also shared demographic and parenting data by survey, from which group-specific proportions provide context for identified themes.
  
  
  RESULTS
  In this sample, nearly half of surveyed parents had already talked to their young child about unfair treatment due to race. The proportion of such conversations ranged from one-fifth of Korean parents to two-thirds of Spanish language-primary parents. In focus groups, Korean parents reported fewer experiences with racism than African American and Latino parents. Within each language-ethnicity group, fewer fathers than mothers reported addressing race issues with their young children. All focus groups endorsed messages of cultural pride, preparation for bias, and a strong focus on the individual. The majority of parents viewed racial socialization as an important part of school readiness.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Racial socialization was believed to be salient for school readiness, primarily practiced by mothers, and focused at the individual level. The smaller role of fathers and systems-based approaches represent opportunities for intervention. These results may inform the development of culturally tailored parenting interventions designed to decrease the race-based achievement gap and associated health disparities.
authors.affiliation: Division of Clinical Sciences, University of California, Riverside School of Medicine, Riverside, Calif; RAND Corporation, Santa Monica, Calif. Electronic address: ashaunta.anderson@ucr.edu.
authors.forename: Ashaunta T
authors.initials: AT
authors.lastname: Anderson
authors.affiliation: Department of Social Welfare, University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), Los Angeles, Calif.
authors.forename: Aurora
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Jackson
authors.affiliation: Healthy African American Families II, Los Angeles, Calif; Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science, Los Angeles, Calif.
authors.forename: Loretta
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Jones
authors.affiliation: RAND Corporation, Santa Monica, Calif.
authors.forename: David P
authors.initials: DP
authors.lastname: Kennedy
authors.affiliation: RAND Corporation, Santa Monica, Calif; Departments of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences, David Geffen School of Medicine, UCLA, Los Angeles, Calif; Department of Health Policy and Management, UCLA Jonathan and Karin Fielding School of Public Health, Los Angeles, Calif; Center for Health Services and Society, UCLA Jane and Terry Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior, Los Angeles, Calif.
authors.forename: Kenneth
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Wells
authors.affiliation: RAND Corporation, Santa Monica, Calif; Department of Health Policy and Management, UCLA Jonathan and Karin Fielding School of Public Health, Los Angeles, Calif; UCLA/RAND Prevention Research Center, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, Los Angeles, Calif; Department of Pediatrics, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, Los Angeles, Calif; Children's Discovery & Innovation Institute, Mattel Children's Hospital UCLA, Los Angeles, Calif.
authors.forename: Paul J
authors.initials: PJ
authors.lastname: Chung
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005006:Ethnicity / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D017144:Focus Groups; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008913:Minority Groups / Q000523:psychology*; D010290:Parents / Q000523:psychology*; D063505:Racism / Q000208:ethnology* / Q000523:psychology*; D012951:Socialization
keywords: early childhood; parenting; racial socialization; school readiness; social determinants of health