In a political context marked by U.S. President Donald Trump’s inflammatory rhetoric vilifying people of colour, the rise of white supremacy, and heightened anti-immigration enforcement by ICE, racism and discrimination have become increasingly prevalent and dangerous for many people of colour. Black and Latine youth, in particular, are victims of disproportionate discrimination at school and in broader society, leaving parents deeply concerned about their children.
“Parents of colour have often had these [racist] experiences growing up and probably worry about their kids having them as well, and that worry might be associated with psychological outcomes or different behaviours,” N. Keita Christophe, an assistant professor in McGill’s Department of Psychology, said in an interview with The Tribune.
This worry can take on many different forms, depending on social circumstances as well as parents’ own experiences with racism.
“Parents can worry about their kids getting discriminated against by teachers,” Christophe said. “They can worry about […] their kids experiencing police violence. Some of them might even worry that their kids will discriminate against other kids.”
Due to a lack of tools to assess parents’ concerns about their children’s experiences of racism, Christophe and his collaborators sought to measure how parents worry about their children’s discrimination. Their goal was to observe whether different types of worry reflect distinct concerns about racial discrimination.
The researchers used a scale called Worries About Racial Profiling (WARP) to assess the types of worries parents have, surveying Black and Latine parents in the United States who have a child aged 10 to 18. Parents reported on their concerns about their children facing discrimination, their own discriminatory experiences, and how they talk to their children about race and racism.
The team worked to determine whether the different survey items correlated with one another—whether they cluster into distinct dimensions or operate in distinct spheres. Their findings suggest that the different types of worries are closely related. Importantly, the measure also performed well across both Black and Latine racial groups and accounted for biases.
“A lot of times, [in psychology], the measures that we use […] have not been tested to see if they have a bias for or against certain groups, but if we want to compare groups on different things that we care about, we want to make sure our measures work equally and do not introduce that bias,” Christophe said.
The researchers also explored how these worries relate to other aspects of the parents’ lives. Parents who expressed greater concern about their children were more likely to have experienced discrimination themselves and to have more frequent conversations with their children about coping with racism. Notably, higher levels of parental worry were also associated with depressive symptoms in parents.
One strength of this study is that it targeted people across different geographical areas, capturing how racialized experiences vary across regions.
However, the study did not evaluate parental worries in Asian families. Asian individuals typically face different stereotypes, such as the “model minority” myth, a harmful stereotype which undermines the discrimination Asian people experience by framing them as intelligent and hardworking. Because discrimination can take distinct forms across racial groups, future work should focus on developing more inclusive measures that reflect a broader range of racialized experiences.
Looking ahead, Christophe recommends studying how parents’ worries about discrimination evolve as their children grow older. They expect concerns to grow during their children’s adolescence, as teenagers often spend more time outside the home and face greater exposure to other adults as well as the police.
More broadly, Christophe situated his work within a paradigm shift in psychology. Historically, racialized communities were excluded from psychology research or treated as inferior to the white population. Today, more academics are focusing on the cultural strengths of Black, Latine, and other racialized communities—a critical area which must continue to be studied to progress towards an equitable society.
“As much as it is important to focus on things related to racism and discrimination, I would say it is even more important to focus on positive aspects,” Christophe said. “That is a lot of what my other work does, looking at cultural pride and identity and how you instill that in kids and in families.”
