Beyond Color‐Blind and Color‐Conscious: Approaches to Racial Socialization Among Parents of Transracially Adopted Children

• Author: Nikki Khanna,Caitlin Killian
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/fare.12357
• Published date: 01 April 2019
• Date: 01 April 2019

C K Drew University

N K University of Vermont

Beyond Color-Blind and Color-Conscious:

Approaches to Racial Socialization Among Parents

of Transracially Adopted Children

Objective: To examine how parents of transra-

cially adopted children think about and practice

ethnic–racial socialization.

Background: Previous research has high-

lighted how some parents are color-blind

and others are color-conscious, yet these 2

categorizations fail to cover the range and u-

idity of adoptive parents’ approaches to ethnic

socialization.

Method: Semistructured interviews were con-

ducted with 34 parents of children with Asian,

Latino, and Black ancestry. Parents were

recruited through adoption agencies and sup-

port groups, personal contacts, and snowball

sampling and were asked about attempts

and concerns in ethnically and racially social-

izing their children. Interviews were recorded,

transcribed, and coded for common themes

using the grounded theory method.

Results: Some parents downplayed race/

ethnicity, but our ndings elucidate their range

of motivations from “protecting” their children

from a racialized society to prioritizing other

goals. More parents attempted to ethnically

socialize but did so in varied ways, such as buy-

ing consumer items or forging relationships

Department of Sociology, 36 Madison Avenue, Drew Uni-

versity, Madison, NJ 07940 (ckillian@drew.edu).

Key Words: adoption, ethnicity, families, race,transracial.

with people of their children’s ethnic group.

Compared with “color-conscious” parents

of Asian and Latino children, “color-conscious”

parents of Black children were more likely

to emphasize preparation for bias.

Conclusion: Adoptive parents can vacillate

between minimizing the impact of race to talk-

ing about steps taken to ethnically socialize

children. Some parents note a profound change

in their perspective at some point after adopting

their children.

Implications: Delving into more than 2

approaches to ethnic socialization and iden-

tifying changes over time affords a deeper

understanding of parents’ perspectives

and behaviors and helps researchers interpret

the mixed results found in past studies.

In the second decade of the 21st century, as

discussions of race and nationality are fraught

with debates over White nationalism and who

is or is not a desirable immigrant, neighbors

and coworkers confront how they make sense

of race on the micro level. Discussions of race

also occur in homes across the United States,

perhaps even more so in families with mem-

bers who are susceptible to racial marginaliza-

tion. Reactions to race—from blatant racism to

the minimization of race in a color-blind dis-

course that nonetheless privileges Whites over

those of other races (Bonilla-Silva, 2003), to a

260 Family Relations 68 (April 2019): 260–274

DOI:10.1111/fare.12357