White Racial Socialization: Progressive Fathers on Raising “Antiracist” Children

• Published date: 01 February 2017
• Author: Margaret Ann Hagerman
• Date: 01 February 2017
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/jomf.12325

M A H Mississippi State University

White Racial Socialization: Progressive Fathers

on Raising “Antiracist” Children

For the past 30 years, the denition of racial

socialization has referred to how parents pre-

pare children of color to ourish within a soci-

ety structured by white supremacy. Drawing on

ethnographic interviews with eight white afu-

ent fathers, this study explores fathers’ participa-

tion in white racial socialization processes. The

article focuses on fathers who identify as “pro-

gressive” and examines the relationship between

fathers’ understandings of what it means to raise

an “antiracist” child, the explicit and implicit

lessons of racial socialization that follow from

these understandings, and hegemonic whiteness.

Findings illustrate how these fathers understand

their role as a white father, how their attempts to

raise antiracist children both challenge and rein-

force hegemonic whiteness, and what role race

and class privilege play in this process.

Racial socialization is typically dened as “the

mechanisms through which parents transmit

information, values, and perspectives about …

race to their children” (Hughes et al., 2006). For

the past 30 years, this denition has referred to

how parents prepare children of color to ourish

within a society structured by white supremacy

(Hughes et al., 2006; Winkler, 2012). Largely,

research has focused on how parents prepare

Department of Sociology, Mississippi State University, PO

Box C, Mississippi State, MS 39762

(mah1125@msstate.edu).

This article was edited by Christine Williams.

KeyWords: fathers, parenting,qualitative, racism, socializa-

tion.

black children for potential experiences of prej-

udice and discrimination (Bowman & Howard,

1985; Hughes, 2003; Peters, 2002) or phys-

ical racial violence (Thomas & Blackmon,

2015); how “child, parent, and situational cor-

relates” predict socialization practices (Brown,

Tanner-Smith, Lesane-Brown, & Ezell, 2007,

p. 15); and the impact these parenting strategies

have on youth outcomes with respect to identity,

self-esteem, coping strategies, academics, and

so forth (see Hughes et al., 2006).

Scholarship on racial socialization has

expanded dramatically in more recent years,

incorporating research with Latino, Japanese

American, and multiracial families (see, e.g.,

Brega & Coleman, 1999; Phinney & Chavira,

1995; Rollins & Hunter, 2013). However, few

studies have theorized or empirically investi-

gated the processes of racial socialization in

white families who benet from structural racial

privilege (Burton, Bonilla-Silva, Ray, Buck-

elew, & Freeman, 2010). Burton et al. (2010)

found that recent studies of racial socialization

“assumed that people of color will encounter

racism but did not fully examine the social-

ization processes among whites that lead them

to discriminate” (p. 453). Given this, little is

known about how the newest generation of

young whites learns about race from their white

families.

Although this article certainly extends exist-

ing academic scholarship, my research emerges

in a moment of heightened public discourse

surrounding race in America. Discussions about

how to talk to children about race can be found

throughout popular media: parenting blogs,

60 Journal of Marriage and Family 79 (February 2017): 60–74

DOI:10.1111/jomf.12325