| dc.description.abstract | Young people have long played an important role in challenging and dismantling racism and white supremacy. However, little is known about what explains how some adolescents come to hold antiracist attitudes and engage in antiracist action. This three-paper dissertation seeks to contribute to an emerging body of literature providing insight into this question.
The first study explores the relationships among constructs of an antiracist person. First, drawing on definitions of antiracism, I identify seven components of these definitions and then translate them into constructs that describe a person. Then, I ask how these seven constructs are related to one another and for whom. To answer these questions, I use two complementary analytic approaches: structural equation modeling and latent class analysis. Results suggest that a person-centered approach best describes the data, such that, rather than a singular universal set of relationships, there are multiple meaningful ways in which the components are related. Additionally, these different ways are not entirely explained by racial identity.
The second study examines the relationships between the antiracist constructs, anger towards racial injustice, and adolescents’ use of emotion regulation skills. While research has emphasized the presence and role of emotions in shaping antiracist outcomes, I argue that what one does with their emotions (i.e., regulations) is an important part of this story connecting emotions to antiracism. Results illustrate the complexity of these relationships. Whereas cognitive reappraisal strategies function as promotive of antiracist outcomes, aligning with existing literature, the use of non-acceptance is also promotive of antiracist attitudes and outcomes, conflicting with existing research that suggests non-acceptance is maladaptive.
Finally, the third study brings together emerging research on school racial socialization by examining how five different types of school messages—cultural competence, cultural socialization, color-evasive, mainstream, and critical consciousness—may be related to components of antiracism, and how these relationships may vary by one’s racial identity. Results emphasize that, generally, messages of cultural competence are negatively related to antiracism, mainstream messages are positively related, color-evasive and cultural socialization messages have mixed relationships depending on one’s racial identity, and critical consciousness messages are neutral. | |
