Abstract
Dr. Sylvia Perry
Northwestern University
Understanding and Encouraging White American Parent-Child Conversations About Race
How do White parents talk to their children about race and racism? In this talk, I will discuss my research on White U.S. parents’ racial and ethnic socialization tendencies (of their White children, ranging from 8-to 17-years-old), including: (1) how individual differences are associated with White parents’ willingness to discuss race and racism with their White children, (2) how these processes unfold during a guided parent-child discussion inside the lab, and (3) White parents’ self-reports of how they discussed race and racism with their White children before and after the death of George Floyd. I will end with discussing new data on how Black parents perceive White parents’ socialization practices, as well as how this work may contribute to the development of schools’ curricula and the tools we provide White parents to facilitate these discussions.
