Development of an Asian American parental racial-ethnic socialization scale.

OBJECTIVE

To develop a measure of parental racial-ethnic socialization that is appropriate for Asian American families.

METHOD

To test the reliability and validity of this new measure, we surveyed 575 Asian American emerging adults (49% female, 79% U.S. born).

RESULTS

Using exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses, the results show 7 reliable subscales: maintenance of heritage culture, becoming American, awareness of discrimination, avoidance of other groups, minimization of race, promotion of equality, and cultural pluralism. Tests of factorial invariance show that overall, the subscales demonstrate, at minimum, partial metric invariance across gender, age, nativity, educational attainment, parent educational attainment, geographic region of residence, and Asian-heritage region. Thus, the relations among the subscales with other variables can be compared across these different subgroups. The subscales also correlated with ethnic identity, ethnic centrality, perceptions of discrimination, and pluralistic orientation, demonstrating construct validity.

CONCLUSION

In an increasingly complex and diverse social world, our scale will be useful for gaining a better understanding of how Asian American parents socialize their children regarding issues of race, discrimination, culture, and diversity. (PsycINFO Database Record