Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology, Vol 28(4), Oct 2022, 449-459; doi:10.1037/cdp0000435
Objectives: This study investigated the role of ethnic/racial composition in schools and neighborhoods in (a) predicting family cultural socialization and (b) moderating the relation between family cultural socialization and young children’s social competence over time. Method: Two nationally representative, longitudinal samples were used from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 1998–99 and 2010–11 cohorts. The analytic sample included 11,870 ethnic/racial minority children (mean age was 5.66 years old at Wave 1; 50% female; 31% Black, 49% Latinx, 18% Asian American, 2% Native American). Results: Path analyses showed that families practiced more cultural socialization in more diverse schools and neighborhoods. Moreover, family cultural socialization was most beneficial for children’s social competence when they were in diverse settings with few coethnics. Conclusions: The results highlighted cultural socialization as a tool that ethnic/racial minority families use to help their children navigate ethnic/racial diversity and numeric marginalization in social settings. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)