Racial Discrimination, Racial Socialization, and Crime: A Life-Course Model
Posted: 10/31/2016 (Local Events)
Join Callie Burt, CSDE Affiliate and UW Assistant Professor of Sociology, for a seminar with the Center for Statistics and the Social Sciences.
Recent studies suggest that interpersonal racial discrimination increases the risk of crime among African Americans and familial racial socialization practices provide resilience to discrimination’s criminogenic effects. Yet, studies have focused on the short-term effects of racial discrimination largely among adolescents. The present study seeks to advance knowledge by exploring whether and how racial discrimination’s criminogenic effects and racial socialization’s resilience effects endure. Elaborating Simons and Burt’s (2011) social schematic theory of crime, Dr. Burt traces the effects of childhood discrimination and familial racial socialization on the structuring of the life course in ways that influence the likelihood of adult offending, highlighting cognitive and social pathways and their interplay via interactional and cumulative continuity. This life-course SST model is tested using data from the Family and Community Heath (FACHS), a panel study of African American youth followed from ages 10 to 25. Consistent with the model, analyses reveal that the criminogenic cognitive consequences of racial discrimination are mediated by the nature of social relationships and ties. Specifically, by increasing criminogenic social schemas, interpersonal racial discrimination decreases embeddedness in supportive romantic, educational, and employment relations. Findings suggest that not only do the criminogenic effects of racial discrimination endure to increase the likelihood of adult offending, but familial racial socialization has lasting protective effects.
Date: 11/02/2016
Time: 12:30 - 1:30 PM PT
Location: University of Washington, Savery 409