Review article
https://doi.org/10.5559/di.26.3.04
What Parents Say and in Which Way They Convey Messages about Ethnicity to Children?
Marina Štambuk
orcid.org/0000-0001-6637-3676
; Croatian Studies, Zagreb
Abstract
Children’s developmental outcomes are the result of their unique
characteristics and different environments they develop in, as well
as their interaction. An important part of this interaction is
marked by social meaning, attitudes and beliefs about the
importance of ethnicity, especially in a multiethnic environment.
Previous studies were dominantly focused on family functioning
and parenting processes in western families, majority groups and
middle socioeconomic status. Minority families face specific
challenges due to their different history, cultural heritage and
status in society, thus generalization of the existing results to these
families is limited. Also, there is a lack of research on family
processes that include transmission of messages about group
membership, especially in the European area. In this paper we
review research about ethnic socialization, i.e. parenting in the
direction of conveying information, values, beliefs and attitudes
related to ethnicity. First, we present the theoretical framework of
ethnic socialization and its relationship with parents’ and
children’s characteristics and experiences as well as children’s
developmental outcomes. Second, we consider limitations of the
existing research. Finally, we discuss the importance of the ethnic
socialization research in Croatian multiethnic communities along
with an overview of the research on ethnic socialization in the
ethnically divided city of Vukovar.
Keywords
ethnic socialization; cultural socialization; preparation for bias; promotion of mistrust; egalitarianism
Hrčak ID:
187746
URI
Publication date:
17.10.2017.
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