"No [Right] Way to be a Black Woman": Exploring Gendered Racial Socialization Among Black Women.

Using the theoretical lenses of intersectionality and racial-ethnic socialization, we conducted a focus group study with 29 Black women. We analyzed transcripts for the sources of messages about skin color and hair and for participants' responses to these messages via a grounded theory approach. Family members were the primary source of messages about skin color and hair. Peers and the media also communicated such messages. Messages ranged from endorsement of Western standards of beauty to an embrace of darker skin colors and natural hair texture. Rather than serving as passive recipients of messages, participants sifted through and reconciled messages with varying degrees of resolution. Their accounts reflected their intersectional experiences as Black women, representing a variety of physical attributes. We discuss the influence of these physical attributes on their individual racial-gender identity development in light of a second burgeoning Black hair movement that embraces Black natural hair in the U.S. Findings may help families and others build understanding of and increase sensitivity towards the intra- and interpersonal implications of colorism for Black women. Findings may also inform institutional policies (e.g., school, work) and practices such that they no longer create barriers or yield consequences for the Black women navigating these settings.

Racial Socialization, Private Regard, and Behavior Problems in African American Youth: Global Self-Esteem as a Mediator.

Racial socialization messages appear to have varying impacts on the adjustment of African American youth. To further explore this, we examined how two types of racial socialization messages might influence African American youth internalizing and externalizing behavior. The Youth Self Report was used to measure these behavior outcomes. Given that racial socialization messages may not be directly linked to behavior outcomes, we considered private regard, an aspect of racial identity, to serve as a mediator. Additionally, we examined global self-esteem as a mediator of the complex dynamic between racial socialization messages and behavior outcomes. Adolescents in our study completed paper assessments. Majority of the participants were female (56 %) and reside in a metropolitan area in the Mid-Atlantic region. Adolescent's ages ranged from 14 to 17 years with the average age being 15 years old. Path analysis revealed cultural pride and alertness to discrimination messages varied in their relation to private regard. Results also indicated a strong linkage between private regard, global self-esteem, and internalizing behaviors. Interestingly, the linkage between private regard, global self-esteem and externalizing behaviors was not as robust. Further, private regard appeared to directly and indirectly impact externalizing behaviors. The implications of these findings for racial socialization strategies, identity development (racial and global) as it pertains to behavior problems for African American adolescents are discussed.