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LEARNING RACE, SOCIALIZING BLACKNESS

A Cross-Generational Analysis of Black Americans' Racial Socialization Experiences

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 June 2010

Shayla C. Nunnally
Shayla C. Nunnally*
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, University of Connecticut
*
Professor Shayla C. Nunnally, Department of Political Science & Institute for African American Studies, University of Connecticut, 341 Mansfield Rd., Unit 1024, Storrs, CT 06269-1024. E-mail: shayla.nunnally@uconn.edu
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Abstract

Contemporary discourse about Black Americans questions the loyalties of younger Blacks to the advancement of the Black racial group. This discourse often compares the commitment of Black Americans who came of age during the Civil Rights Movement era to those who came of age during the post-Civil Rights Movement era. Fueling this discourse is a working assumption that somehow younger Black Americans have a different understanding about race and its role in Blacks' political interests. This begs the question whether there are generational differences in the ways that Black Americans learn about race, or racial socialization, perhaps with implications for distinct value orientations about Black politics. Using public opinion data from an original survey, the 2007 National Politics and Socialization Survey (NPSS), this paper compares the racial socialization experiences of four generations of Black Americans—(1) World War II generation (age 67 and older, born in and before 1940); (2) civil rights generation (ages 54–66, born 1953–1941); (3) mid-civil rights generation (ages 43–53, born 1964–1954); and (4) post-civil rights generation Black Americans (age 42 and under, born 1965 and after). Results of ordered probit regression analyses indicate minimal generational differences. Differences emerge in emphases on racial socialization messages about Black public behavior, Black intraracial relations, Black interracial relations, and composite factor loadings of Black consciousness and Black protectiveness messages.

Keywords

Racial SocializationCivil Rights GenerationPost-Civil Rights GenerationWorld War II GenerationBlack PoliticsGenerational Politics
Type
State of the Art
Information
Du Bois Review: Social Science Research on Race , Volume 7 , Issue 1 , Spring 2010 , pp. 185 - 217
Copyright
Copyright © W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research 2010

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