Profiles of White parents' racial attitudes: Family context and children's anti‐Black racial bias

Abstract Objective The goal was to examine configurations of racialized attitudes and practices between mothers and fathers in White families with young children to identify distinct couple profiles and investigate how profiles relate to demographic factors and children's anti‐Black attitudes and behaviors. Background The relation of mothers' and fathers' conjoint racial attitudes and practices to children's racial attitudes/behavior in White families is understudied and relevant for familial socialization and interventions. Method Latent profile analysis was used to examine profiles of mothers' and fathers' (136 non‐Hispanic, middle‐high income White families) racial attitudes and practices and their relations to parents' education and income, and to children's age, sex, implicit anti‐Black attitudes, and cross‐race friends. Results Profiles were (a) antiracist parents (25%), (b) racially biased parents (22%), and (c) mixed group, reflecting moderately biased fathers and relatively antiracist mothers (53%). Parents' higher education was associated with a lower likelihood of racially biased profile assignment. Higher income was associated with a higher likelihood of this assignment. Children with antiracist parents had a higher proportion of cross‐race friends compared to racially biased parents. Conclusion Findings support the disaggregation of education and income in studies of racial attitudes and behaviors and highlight the importance of assessing both adults in a family to contextualize children's racial socialization. Implications Intervention and family life educators should consider that parents are often nonaligned in their attitudes and practices regarding antiracism and child socialization and that parental alignment predicts children's cross‐race social interactions.