Perceptions of adolescents' racial discrimination experiences, racial identity, and depressive symptoms among Black American fathers

• Published date: 01 February 2022
• Author: Elizabeth Jelsma,Fatima Varner,Nabeeha Engineer
• Date: 01 February 2022
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/fare.12613

RESEARCH

Perceptions of adolescents’racial discrimination

experiences, racial identity, and depressive symptoms

among Black American fathers

Elizabeth Jelsma|Fatima Varner|Nabeeha Engineer

Department of Human Development and

Family Sciences, The University of Texas at

Austin, Austin, Texas, USA

Correspondence

Elizabeth Jelsma, Department of Human

Development and Family Sciences, University

of Texas at Austin, 108 E. Dean Keeton Street,

Stop A2702, Austin, Texas 78712, USA.

Email: ejelsma@utexas.edu

Funding information

This work was supported by the Eunice

Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child

Health and Human Development (grant

no. P2CHD042849) awarded to the Population

Research Center at The University of Texas at

Austin. The content is solely the responsibility

of the authors and does not necessarily

represent the official views of the National

Institutes of Health.

We appreciate the helpful feedback offered by

Su Yeong Kim in the preparation of this

manuscript.

Abstract

Objective: This study examined whether Black American

fathers’perceptions of their adolescents’experiences of

racial discrimination were related to fathers’depressive

symptoms and if this association was moderated by

fathers’racial identity beliefs and adolescent gender.

Background: Racial discrimination is not only an

individual-level but also a family-level stressor for Black

families. Racial discrimination experienced by parents can

spillover to influence their children; however, fewer studies

have examined how adolescents’discrimination experi-

ences relate to parents’psychological outcomes, especially

among Black fathers.

Method: Data were collected via online survey from 240

Black fathers (M

age

=45.93 years, SD =8.72) of adoles-

cents (M

age

=14.44 years, SD =2.11) residing in the

United States. Participants completed questions about their

racial identity beliefs and depressive symptoms, as well as

their adolescents’experiences with racial discrimination.

Results: Regression analyses revealed that adolescent-

experienced racial discrimination was directly associated

with fathers’depressive symptoms. Fathers whose race

was more central to them (racial centrality) had higher

depressive symptoms when their adolescents had high

racial discrimination experiences. Also, fathers’beliefs

about how Black people are viewed by society (public

regard) moderated the relation between adolescent-

experienced racial discrimination and fathers’depressive

symptoms differently based on adolescent gender. Adoles-

cent gender also moderated the relation between fathers’

personal feelings about being Black (private regard) and

their depressive symptoms.

Received: 13 September 2020Revised: 20 January 2021Accepted: 21 March 2021

DOI: 10.1111/fare.12613

© 2021 National Council on Family Relations.

Family Relations. 2022;71:163–180.wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/fare 163

Conclusions: Overall, fathers’beliefs about their race, as

well as the gender of their adolescents, play a role in their

psychological health when their adolescents experience

discrimination.

KEYWORDS

adolescents, Black American fathers, depression, racial discrimination,

racial identity

Racial discrimination remains a major social stressor that not only negatively affects Black

Americans individually, but often cascades to influence Black family processes (Murry, 2019).

Much of the existing research examining stress spillover resulting from racial discrimination is

unidirectional, moving from parent to child (Anderson et al., 2015; Benner & Kim, 2009;

Riina & McHale, 2012). However, some preliminary evidence suggests that this process may be

more bidirectional and that racial discrimination stress experienced by youth may also influence

their parents (Colen et al., 2019; Gibbons et al., 2004; Riina & McHale, 2012; Varner

et al., 2020). There is a paucity of research focusing on the role of Black fathers and how fathers

may experience and cope with their children’s racial discrimination experiences. Guided by a

life course perspective (Elder, 1998; Elder et al., 2003) and the multidimensional model of racial

identity (Sellers et al., 1998), the current study investigates whether Black fathers’racial identity

moderates the relation between their adolescent children’s experiences of racial discrimination

and fathers’own mental health.

CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK

Many theorists have conceptualized frameworks to understand how Black families remain resil-

ient despite experiencing historical and contemporary oppression and inequality. From an eco-

logical perspective (Bronfenbrenner, 1979), Black families face racial stressors from multiple

contextual forces, from macro-level structural inequality down to micro-level interpersonal

racial discrimination, which can take the form of both blatant (e.g., being called a derogatory

name) and more subtle (e.g., being watched by security while shopping) behaviors (Sellers

et al., 2003). According to life course theory and particularly the notion of “linked lives”

(Elder, 1998; Elder et al., 2003), human lives are lived interdependently, and the eventsthat

impact one individual will have consequences for others in their social environment (Park

et al., 2018). Therefore, research on racial discrimination that focuses solely on the target of rac-

ism may be missing important indirect effects of racism on others in the target’s social network,

such as their family (Gee et al., 2012).

In their review of racial discrimination and health from a life course perspective, Gee

et al. (2012) speculated that “for parents, discrimination against their child may be more stress-

ful than discrimination against the parents themselves”(p. 969). Empirical tests of this “ripple

effect”of racial discrimination across family systems remain scarce. The linked lives principle

would suggest that when a youth experiences racial discrimination, it would directly influence

not only the youth but also their parents (Park et al., 2018). Indeed, preliminary evidence shows

that child-experienced racial discrimination can negatively affect their parents, specifically by

reducing parent–child relationship quality (Riina & McHale, 2012) and positive parenting prac-

tices, such as involved-vigilant parenting (i.e., parental responsiveness and demandingness;

Varner et al., 2020), as well as increasing risk of parental substance use (Gibbons et al., 2004)

and poor self-rated health (Colen et al., 2019). However, none of these prior studies have

applied this theoretical perspective to understand how discrimination among Black youth may

164 FAMILY RELATIONS