It Takes a Village: Protecting Rural African American Youth in the Context of Racism

• NCJ Number: 226022
• Journal: Journal of Youth and Adolescence Volume: 38 Issue: 2 Dated: February 2009 Pages: 175-188
• Author(s): Cady Berkel; Velma McBride Murry; Tera R. Hurt; Yi-fu Chen; Gene H. Brody; Ronald L. Simons; Carolyn Cutrona; Frederick X. Gibbons
• Date Published: February 2009
• Length: 14 pages
• Grant Number(s): T32MH18387
• Sponsoring Agency: US Dept of Health and Human Services; National Institute of Mental Health
• Publication Format: Article
• Publication Type: Report (Study/Research)
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

Using a mixed-methods approach, this study examined links between positive and negative contextual influences on rural African-American adolescent outcomes, with attention to the quality of racial socialization and parenting on academic performance, reactions to peer pressure, and aggressive tendencies.

Abstract

The quantitative results support Structural Ecosystems Theory (SET), which hypothesizes that parents’ experience with discrimination influence child outcomes by increasing parents’ teaching of racial socialization strategies to their children. This study demonstrates the importance of relying on the “village” to support child outcomes in both hypothesized and unforeseen ways. As hypothesized, quantitative analyses supported SET in showing the link between collective socialization and adolescent self-pride as mediated by the support that community involvement provided for parents in their use of involved, vigilant parenting. An unanticipated finding was the importance of successful African-American community members as role models for the racial-identity development of the girls in the study. Mothers proved to be key in moderating the negative influence of discrimination, both by proactively teaching their children about racism and the strengths of their cultural heritage, as well as constructive reactions to negative events through problem solving with their sons. Adolescents thus drew on the experiences of their parents and the strength of communities in their attempts to make sense of the inequalities and injustice they experienced, enabling them to reframe experiences with discrimination as a challenge to overcome in navigating their way to fulfillment of positive personal goals. Data from different sources were used to cross-validate each other, using a combination of panel and focus-group data with African-American families living in northeast Georgia. The quantitative data were obtained from the Georgia subsample of the Family and Community Health Study, a multisite, multiwave panel study of neighborhood and family effects on African-American parents‘ and children‘s health and development. 2 tables, 2 figures, and 45 references