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As many researchers have demonstrated, parents of Black children face unique

challenges when socializing their children because of the racial bias their children are exposed to in an anti-Black, racist society (Coard et al., 2004; Coard & Sellers, 2005; Hughes & Chen, 1998; Neblett et al., 2009; Thomas & Speight, 1999). Chapters one and two elucidate the ways parents prepare and approach racially socializing their children. I am particularly interested in how parents’ approach this process with their young Black boys. Due to racial and gender dynamics, Black boys experience disproportionately negative treatment in schools that leads to biased suspensions, over identification for special education, and inequitable grading practices. Moreover, Black boys’ experiences with racial bias at a young age increases the likelihood that ideas of race become salient in conversations between parents and their sons. However, parents may not be prepared to have this conversation when negative racial experiences occur, especially parents of young children, (i.e., those 4 years-old and younger). The following research questions guided my study.

1. What situations influence the racial socialization conversations parents have with pre- adolescent Black boys?

a. What child-initiated situations influence parent racial socialization? b. What school-based situations influence parent racial socialization? 2. How do parents understand and interpret their racial socialization actions and

conversations with pre-adolescent Black Boys?

b. What resources do parents use for racial socialization? Methodology

I used qualitative analysis to address my research question because it allows researchers to capture thick and rich descriptions on how participants make sense of the phenomena of interest. Specifically, for this study I investigated how parents react in situations when ideas of race become particularly salient to them and their sons and how parents decide to address these situations with a child who may not be developmentally able to fully understand all of the implications of being a Black boy in America. By combining qualitative analysis with

phenomenological methods (Smith & Osborn, 2003), I attempted to access the lived experiences of parents to better understand the beliefs and attitudes that inform their racial socialization practices during these critical moments. Phenomenology, as defined by Edmund Husserl, studies how individuals make meaning of and perceive their experiences (Giorgi & Giorgi, 2003;

Saldana, 2009; Smith, 1996). Phenomenological approaches work well when researchers aim to understand the participants’ psychological world of beliefs, identities, constructs and emotional experiences, also referred to as a lifeworld (Giorgi & Giorgi; Saldana, 2009; Smith & Osborne, 2008; Smith et al., 2009). Phenomenology informed my analysis of the data collected during this study.

Phenomenological analysis is also unique in that researchers can use it to focus on the cognitive processes participants undergo such as those encountered when individuals engage in conversations about race and racial bias (Smith, 1996). For example, Smith (1996) asserted that a phenomenological approach provides clarity in areas of research that have been heavily

dependent on quantitative research, as has been the case with the current parent racial socialization literature. Researchers (Pivčević, 1970; Smith & Osborne, 2008) asserted that

phenomenology aims to describe the underlying reasons for phenomena. Using

phenomenological methods enabled me to contribute to the current understanding of the reasons parents cite for participating in racial socialization conversations when their pre-adolescent sons recognize the salience of race in various situations.

In addition to drawing on phenomenological methods for my interviews, I conducted site visits at a school attended by two of the study participants’ children. Based on parent

preferences, I also conducted parent interviews at either the families’ homes or another location chosen by the parents. Specifically, I met with two parents at their homes and with the other four at locations they designated. These places included a co-working space, a library and a hotel lounge. My home observation reflects the approach Caughy (2002) used to study the

socialization strategies of parents with young children. The field observations I collected

illuminated both processes and spaces that are often missing pieces of content but relevant to the central inquiries of studies (Mulhall, 2003; Oliver-Hoyo & Allen, 2006). These visits assisted with data triangulation and, consequently, enriched my analysis and conclusions. Observing how these children moved through their school environments and watching how they were treated provided context for the types of situations their parents chose to address related to school and issues related to race during our interviews.

Participants

In accordance with the recommendations outlined by Smith and Osborn (2009) for studies using phenomenological methods, six participants were recruited for this investigation. The participants of this study were parents of Black boys ranging from six to 12 years of age who lived in a southeastern city.

Also, in keeping with the recommendations of phenomenological researchers, my participants were a semi-homogeneous group (Smith & Osborn, 2009). These caregivers were similar in that they all were providing primary care to young Black boys that identified as African American and live in the same southeastern city. These families were dissimilar in familial structure, schools their children attended, marital status, educational attainment, and ethnic self-identification. However, differences seen across familial structures were inevitable, appropriate, and indicative of the diversity frequently observed among Black families (Boykin & Toms, 1985; Stevenson, Reed, Bodison & Bishop, 1997).

Prior to recruiting parents for this study, for which I used convenience sampling, I started Village of Wisdom, a non-profit organization designed to support Black families. My work with Village of Wisdom has increased my interaction with and visibility in the Black community of the city where this study took place. To recruit parents, I sent a digital recruitment flyer to email lists that I had become familiar through my work with Village of Wisdom. In addition, I

personally notified some parents whom I believed would diversify the range of socio-economic and status represented in this study. Table 1 provides more detailed information about each of the parents including job type, marital status and level of education. None of the parents selected for this study have participated in the substantive programming Village of Wisdom has provided, which includes our parent workshops but not our community events. This decision was made because Village of Wisdom’s substantive programming aims to augment Black parents’ racial socialization practices.

Data Collection Techniques

Semi-structured interviews. Smith and Osborn (2003) have asserted that the purpose of phenomenological analysis “is to explore in detail how participants are making sense of their personal and social world (p. 852).” This sort of analysis necessitates the following two-step process interviews enable: 1) the participants attempting to communicate their conceptualization of their experiences or life-world and 2) the researcher attempting to make sense of the

information gathered from the interviews (Smith & Osborn, 2003). Scholars advocate for the use of semi-structured interviews for phenomenological analysis because such meetings provide the structure needed not only to gather, organize, and analyze data but they also allow the

investigator the latitude to engage in deeper interrogation when interesting concepts emerge (Giorgi & Giorgi, 2003; Saldana, 2009; Smith & Osborn, 2008; Smith et al., 2009). In accordance with recommendations from the phenomenological literature, interviews with caregivers took, on average, 80 minutes. Although the interviews were semi-structured,

funneling was used by starting the discussions with simple less-explicit prompts before moving to more specific questions if needed in order to reduce the impact of potentially leading

questions (Smith & Osborn).

Site visits and field notes. I conducted site visits, visiting one school and one home with the aim of corroborating data collected from the parent interviews. During the site visits to the selected families’ homes and schools, I created field notes based on my observations of the general experiences of the children and the presence of African American cultural items. For my school site visit, I selected the only school attended by children from two different sets of

participating parents and observed one of these sons in the school setting for 90 minutes. I chose to observe him because his father discussed instances of racial bias that he had encountered at

school. During this visit, I paid special attention to the ways this child was treated in the school and the quality of his interactions with teachers and other students. In my field notes, I also observed the presence or absence of African American cultural items in the school. During my school site visit, I listened for and made notes when I heard discussions about race or cultural history and included those conversations in my field notes as well. In addition, I conducted a site visit to one parent’s home that lasted 20 minutes and wrote down remarks this father made during and after the interview. These methods were inspired and framed by the analysis and work of Caughy et al. (2002) who validated a survey instrument that assesses the number of Afrocentric items in the home.

Data Analysis

Few studies of racial socialization research literature have explicitly investigated how parents approach conversations with children when issues of race intersect with academic performance. Thematic analysis involves the iterative identification of shared explicit and implicit psychological phenomena inherent in the ideas of the participants. Therefore, I used thematic analysis, which is cited as methodologically appropriate for phenomenological approaches (Smith & Osborn, 2003). For example, MacIntyre (1984) suggested that thematic analysis welcomes contradictions that arise in the narration and representation of stories (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000). Therefore, by using this methodological approach, I was well positioned to address the complex nature of the synergistic and nuanced cognitions that informed the racial socialization practices of the parents in this study (Neblett et al., 2012).

For a theoretical framework to guide my analysis of my research, I relied on Lesane- Brown’s description of racial socialization as consisting of “specific verbal and non-verbal messages transmitted to younger generations for the development of values, attitudes, behaviors,

and beliefs regarding the meaning and significance of race and racial stratification, intergroup and intragroup interactions, and personal and group identity” (Lesane-Brown, p. 400, 2006). Using this conceptual framework, I was able to focus my thematic analysis on phenomena related to racial socialization, and I organized the themes that emerged by my research questions.

Following the practices and recommendations of phenomenological researchers including Lee and Koro-Lungberg (2007) and Moustaka (1994), I compiled individual studies of each participant I interviewed. Compiling and presenting individualized studies facilitated an analysis of the psychological world of beliefs, identities, constructs and emotional experiences that

underpinned the racial socialization parents reflected on during interviews. Likewise, the cases of individual parents helped position the findings of this study within the work of previous

researcher. (e.g., Cooper et al., 2014; Neblett et al., 2008; White-Johnson et al., 2011) whose studies leverage profiles to capture the complex, synergistic racial socialization messages parents share with their children. I used these parent studies to inform conclusions about the type of synergistic racial socialization profile parents represented, thus allowing for comparison to those profiles presented in the previously mentioned studies.

I used the paper and pencil method for initial coding and all thematic analysis. Following guidelines for best practice, I read the interview transcripts in their entirety prior to making notes about my thoughts related to the transcript, thus giving me time to take a holistic perspective of the verbal data shared by participants (Giorgi & Giorgi, 2003). Going through transcripts the second time, I demarcated each transition in meaning in the transcript. I attributed an initial code to every segment of words that represented a unique idea, action, or thought to a theme. During this process, I also took notes about themes, psychological perspectives, and ideas that are within each meaning unit. In a last read of the transcript, I finalized my notes and assessments of the

events and provided a description, which is also described as a transformation of each meaning unit. Once completed, I assessed all the transformations gathered and created themes that were essential summations that condensed participant experiences into ideas that seem to be most common and salient (Giorgi & Giorgi).

Authenticity. To honor the voices of the participants I interviewed, I provided multiple opportunities for member checking to verify and validate my analysis of the narratives that were shared. Member checking is a tactic qualitative researchers frequently use to explore how participants experience and construct knowledge around phenomena (Glense, 2006). In the context of this work, my analysis and presentation of these caregivers’ true voices and intentions are the basis of validity in this study. Explicitly, I established two check points for member checking: 1) a post-interview check-in where caregivers reviewed and commented on their transcripts and shared any thoughts that may have arisen after the interview, and 2) a secondary post-interview opportunity was extended to ensure that my presentations of their voices and analyses of their ideas reflected their intentions. That said, due to the busy schedules of the parents in this study, five of the six participants only wanted to conduct the initial post-interview check-in and indicated they trusted the direction I was going in with the study. I promised all parents that I would share the final version of this manuscript with them prior to publishing in case additional changes needed to be made.

Researcher positionality. Positionality is important to discuss because qualitative research tradition necessitates reflective practice in interpreting the data collected and embracing how the researcher’s previous experiences impacts the presentation of findings (Madison, 2005). I am a Black man and an only child who was reared in the suburbs of metropolitan Atlanta, Georgia, by two parents. My parents moved me from Clayton County to Fayette County so that I

could attend schools that had higher academic rankings. This move evidences the privilege of growing up in a middle-class household. My father worked for an airline company as an aircraft mechanic and my mother was a second-grade teacher. I always enjoyed school as a child, and due to my parents’ interests (i.e., mechanics and education), I was encouraged to love science. As a result, I was in a perpetual search for an experiment to conduct or an object to tinker with.

Reflecting on my childhood, my mother was the major verbal racial socializer in my life. She frequently told me about Black scientists and inventors and was the first one to help me tie my greatest potential to people who shared my skin color. I do not remember ever being teased or questioned about my Blackness. Atlanta and its surrounding suburbs provide a unique context in America where it is more common to see Black people who possess economic wealth.

Consequently, unlike in other places I have lived, it was common to see middle-class and even affluent Black families.

I attended a Historically Black University, majored in Chemistry, and subsequently taught physical science as a middle and high school teacher. All of my teaching experiences occurred in schools where the overwhelming majority of the students were Black with a few Latino students. The schools where I taught were Title 1 schools as the majority of my students lived in low-income areas. I am now a researcher and the leader of an organization that I to work with Black families to ensure that children grow up to embrace a positive racial identity; my organization also encourages the families with whom I work to disrupt the racially biased policies and practices of American schools.

I recognize that my life is in many ways reflected in the research I have conducted. From my rearing as a child to my own participation in educating Black youth to my current work as a non-profit leader that works with families on topics related to racial socialization, I bring these

experiences to the analysis that I have conducted. Being aware of this positionality, I recognize how the strength in my experiences not only deepens my understanding of the data to be collected but also may bias my interpretations. Therefore, I utilized reflexive journaling and member checking to maintain my commitment to reflecting the voices of the participants who lent their experiences to this study.

Reflexive Journal

I kept a reflexive journal during the process of interviewing so that I might maintain and consider my thoughts deliberately during the data analysis. It is a common and even suggested practice for researchers to maintain journals while conducting qualitative research because this allows researchers to capture their most immediate reactions, which can be lost quickly over time (Tribe, Xiao & Chambers, 2012). I began to use my journal as the interviews commenced and continued to use it during site visits. At the conclusion of my data collection, I looked at my journal to see how my own perspectives and thoughts shifted across the entire process. Reciprocity

All participants were given a $50 gift card as compensation for their time. In addition, all informants were offered access to Village of Wisdom’s services, which includes culturally affirming community events, one-on-one academic planning, school advocacy support, and parent support group meetings. I hope that the information collected from this study will

contribute to the larger national conversation about the challenges facing Black families as they support their child’s matriculation through the US education system. In turn, I hope that parents, researchers and educators will be able to use this research to apply political pressure to policy leaders, school boards, and principals to invest in programming that will benefit their children’s access to a more culturally responsive education.

CHAPTER 4. FINDINGS

In this chapter, I discuss the findings of this study as they relate to the research questions presented in Chapter three. This chapter begins with an introduction to the lifeworlds of the parents who participated in my study. Consistent with the studies that draw from

phenomenology, I introduce each parent by using parts of his or her interview to provide background information that gives a context for understanding how each person’s experiences have shaped his or her racial socialization decisions. Next, I discuss the themes that arose during the semi-structured interviews with parents. To guide my analysis, I used Lesane-Brown’s (2006) framing of racial socialization as specific processes and actions that communicate to a younger generation how race is conceptualized. After briefly discussing these themes, I present examples of those themes organized by my research questions (see p. 23 for research questions). I have also provided two supplementary tables that can be found in the appendix: Table 1

provides parent pseudonyms, employment, education and marital status, and Table 2 provides parent pseudonyms, age of first racial socialization conversation, and a brief description of the cue that first made the child aware that he was Black.

Parent Socialization Lifeworld Profiles

Phenomenological methods encourage the understanding of the lifeworld of participants (Smith, 1996). Consequently, in this chapter, I provide a synopsis of the lifeworld of each