Preparation for bias conversations among Black/African American, Latinx, and Asian parent‐adolescent dyads: A qualitative content analysis of observational data

Abstract

Abstract Preparation for bias conversations may be critical in raising youth awareness of racial‐ethnic discrimination, fostering a strong racial‐ethnic identity, and teaching them how to cope or respond to racialized stressors. However, the literature relies almost exclusively on survey approaches, limiting understanding of how these conversations actually unfold in real time. The present study used qualitative content analysis of observational data to describe the strategies 151 Black/African American, Latinx, and Asian parents ( M age = 41.63, SD = 6.16) and youth aged 11–14 years ( M age = 12.16, SD = 0.91) discussed to respond to four discrimination scenarios that varied in the location, the power asymmetry, and the nature of the interaction. Black/African American parents were primarily U.S.‐born whereas Latinx and Asian parents were predominantly first‐generation immigrants. We aimed to center participants' words to understand how they respond to discrimination in context, whether parents and youth differed, and how this may vary across racial‐ethnic groups. We identified strategies that could be categorized into ignoring the perpetrator, confronting, support‐seeking, reporting, activism, and protective compliance. Unique to our analysis was the ability to distinguish how strategies were embedded in the type of discrimination stressor, the context of race/ethnicity, and youth‐ versus parent‐suggested strategies. Though there was a broad range of strategies that were suggested, the findings illustrate that the context of the discrimination matters and that parents and youth also value different approaches.