Influence of Racial Socialization Practices on the Cognitive and Behavioral Competence of African-American Preschoolers

¶ … Racial Socialization Practices on the Cognitive and Behavioral Competence of African-American Preschoolers: Article Review In the September issue of Child Development, the article The Influence of Racial Socialization Practices on the Cognitive and Behavioral Competence of African-American Preschoolers discusses how African-American children are affected by their parent's acclimation to the African-American culture. In other words, how do young children react to being black in a predominantly white society.

According to the authors of this study "African-American children and the parents raising them face many challenges, both unique to them as a specific ethnic group and shared across all racial or cultural groups." (O-Brien-Caughy et al., 2002) African-Americans have a unique dilemma in raising their young children. They must deal with three realms of experience: mainstream society, being a minority in mainstream society, and maintaining their own African culture in mainstream society.

Based on these three realms, the authors presented a theoretical basis that racial socialization practices are influenced by how ethnocentric the parents are. The main hypothesis of this study was "that the manner in which racial socialization practices influenced the development of competence in young African-American children would differ depending on the nature of the message itself." My interpretation of this hypothesis is that African-American children are influenced both behaviorally and cognitively by their parents.

A secondary hypothesis was that cultural socialization influenced African-American children's cognitive development by increasing opportunities of stimulation and improved self-esteem. The study was comprised of 200 families in the Baltimore area. The initial search consisted of families with children between the ages of 3-4 1/2 years old whose primary caregiver and/or parents were self-identified as African-American. The families were recruited in 39 different neighborhoods throughout the city. The researchers visited each home and spent an average of 2 1/2 hours on multiple visits that were spaced out over a two-week period.

The parents were paid a nominal $50 fee for their time. The sample was a good representation of the group that the researchers were attempting to study and an effort was made to find the correct people to participate in the study (i.e. door-to-door canvassing, targeted mailings, daycare center visits and Head Start program visits).

However, their research did not take them beyond the "inner-city" of Baltimore, which means that their data may only be relevant for African-American preschoolers in the Baltimore area and that these same results might not be able to be interpreted beyond this geographic area.

Additionally, because they allowed the subjects of the study to self-identify it is possible that given the extensive racial mix in the United States between both blacks and whites as well as the acceptance of the "one-drop rule," many Americans of African ancestry could just as easily classify themselves as white.

The concept of the research may be ethical -- but it does leave the reader asking the question, "Why do we care about this research?" The researchers are trying to link cultural heritage to a child's cognitive and behavioral development. This study has striking similarities to the study performed by Charles Murray and Richard J. Herrnstein, authors of The Bell Curve, who are both proponents of modern philosophies of inborn inequality.

It is the opinion of this reader, that the researchers are attempting to link intelligence to ethnicity and cultural differences. The research also makes a huge leap of faith -- it assumes that cognitive and behavioral competencies can be quantified or measured. The methodology used in this study was based on the sample's family demographic characteristics, racial socialization practices, parenting behavior, and child outcomes. Other details consisted of the parent's education background, their employment status, the size of the family grouping and structure and the families income.

There were many flaws in the methodologies used in this research; one example is that parenting behavior was measured using "an adapted version of the survey measure of mother-child relationship for middle childhood." (O-Brien-Caughy et al.) So, not only did they use an adapted version of this survey to measure racial socialization, but this test was not developed for the African-American culture or for the appropriate age grouping that they were studying.

It is possible that the researchers did attempt to adapt this survey for the African-American families involved in the study, but unless one or more of the researches was African-American this may have been difficult, if not impossible, to do accurately. The other measures used in this study were equally flawed including the way that behavioral competencies of the children were measured and the use of a measure called the Africentric Home Environment Inventory.

This inventory was used to indicate how "ethnic" a home was this survey alone might be offensive to most African-Americans. The final outcome of the study was inconclusive: "Although the present study did not allow for the investigation of the mechanisms by which these different forms of racial socialization contributed to better cognitive and behavioral competence, future works should exam how opportunities for stimulation, child self-confidence, and improved self-esteem might mediate these associations." (O-Brien-Caughy et al.) In conclusion, the article at.