Associations between Family Ethnic-Racial Socialization and Ethnic-Racial Identity Centrality among Black and Latine Youth

Ethnic-racial identity development is a key developmental task that contributes to positive youth outcomes across a variety of domains. Families play an integral role in adolescents’ ethnic-racial identity development through the ways they teach their children about their ethnic-racial backgrounds. Research supports that youth who report high levels of family ethnic-racial socialization concurrently report high levels of ethnic-racial identity centrality, a facet of youth’s ethnic-racial identity that shapes their self-concept and experiences. However, there is less research examining how ethnic-racial socialization and centrality relate to one another over time, limiting the field’s understanding of how youth’s centrality evolves as they are socialized and are active agents of their own development. This study analyzes the interrelations between cultural socialization, a form of family ethnic-racial socialization, and centrality over one year across three waves of data collection. Participants were 2153 Black and Latine high school students from the Southwest and Midwest U.S. (M_age = 15.91; SD_age = 1.17; 57% Black; 44% boys, 54% girls, 2% another gender). Results from multigroup cross-lagged panel modeling indicated that, across groups, higher cultural socialization was associated with a positive change in centrality, but not vice versa. Findings highlight how the family context supports the progressive development of youth’s emerging beliefs about their ethnic-racial identities.