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Journal of Adolescence 1999, 22, 223]242 Article No. jado.1999.0213, available online at http://www.idealibrary.com on

Effects of religiosity and racial socialization on subjective stigmatization in African– American adolescents ANGELA G. BREGA AND LERITA M. COLEMAN The direct effects of religiosity and racial socialization on subjective stigmatization among 50 African]American adolescents were investigated. A stigma is a characteristic about which others hold negative attitudes and stereotypes. Subjective stigmatization measures the degree to which an individual internalizes such negative attitudes and stereotypes toward a social group of which he or she is a member. Participants who showed strong commitment to the church were more destigmatized than were participants who did not. Further, participants who received racial socialization messages stemming from a single ‘‘primary’’ category were more destigmatized than those who did not. Unexpectedly, the more racial socialization messages participants received, the more self-stigmatized they were. The importance of religiosity and racial socialization in the lives of African]American adolescents are discussed. q 1999 The Association for Professionals in Services for Adolescents

Introduction Religion is important to adolescents despite common misconceptions that adolescents are alienated, rebellious, and non-religious. Ninety-five per cent of American teenagers, for example, believe in God. Similarly, 93% believe God loves them, 93% are affiliated with a religious group or denomination, and 80% think religion is important (Benson et al., 1989; Gallup and Bezilla, 1992). This is particularly true of African]American adolescents who are consistently more religious than White adolescents (Benson et al., 1989; Donahue and Benson, 1995). Yet few studies examine the ways in which religion may influence or interact with social psychological processes such as racial socialization or stigmatization. It is the intent of the present study to investigate how these aspects of racial and ethnic identity development (Spencer and Markstrom-Adams, 1990; Ford et al., 1994) are linked in an African]American adolescent population.

Religiosity Religiosity has proven to be a prominent predictor of psychological functioning as well as behavior. Various measures of religiosity and religious participation are positively associated with physical health, faith in people (Bahr and Martin, 1983), subjective well-being (St. George and McNamara, 1984; Witter et al., 1985), life satisfaction (Ellison and Gay, 1990; Reprint requests and correspondence should be addressed to A. G. Brega, Division of Neurosurgery, University of Colorado Health Sciences Center, 4200 East Ninth Avenue, Denver, CO 80262, U.S.A. (E-mail [email protected] ), or L. M. Coleman, Department of Psychology, University of Colorado, Campus Box 345, Boulder, CO 80309-0345, U.S.A. (E-mail [email protected] ). 0140-1971/99/020223+ 20$30.00/0

q 1999 The Association for Professionals in Services for Adolescents

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Ellison, 1991), happiness (Ellison, 1991), efficacy (Hughes and Demo, 1990), mastery (Krause and Van Tran, 1989), depression (Sherkat and Reed, 1992), and self-esteem (Smith et al. 1979; Krause and Van Tran, 1989; Hughes and Demo, 1990; Sherkat and Reed, 1992; Ellison, 1993). In addition, religious involvement has a negative relationship with suicidality (Trovato, 1992) and anxiety (Peterson and Roy, 1985). Religiosity is related to observable behavior as well as psychological attributes. Religious involvement is associated with decreased levels of premarital sexual behavior (Brown, 1985), alcohol and drug use (Zimmerman and Maton, 1992), and other risky health behaviors (Ellison, 1993). Indeed, religious attachment has been found to be more powerful than attachment to parents in predicting drug use (McGee, 1992). Further, religious participation is associated with high levels of school attendance and attainment, work achievement, and income (Brown, 1991). There are several theories to account for the affect of religion on psychological well-being. There is some evidence that religion positively effects individuals by providing them with a system of meaning through which the events of life can be interpreted and understood (Peterson and Roy, 1985; Ellison, 1991; Blaine and Crocker, 1995). This system of meaning may provide the individual with a powerful coping mechanism when faced with life stress. However, the effect of religious participation on well-being apparently is not solely a result of religion’s ability to buffer stress (Krause and Van Tran, 1989; Ellison and Gay, 1990; Ellison, 1993). It may be that religion affects well-being only indirectly by increasing an individual’s level of social support (Sherkat and Reed, 1992). Religious organizations provide an atmosphere in which individuals interact with and receive positive reflected appraisals from others with similar values and experiences (Hughes and Demo, 1990; Ellison, 1993; Blaine and Crocker, 1995). The effect of religious participation also may result from the regulative effect of social control. Religion’s positive effect on self-esteem may occur because of low life stress resulting from the low number of risky behaviors in which churchgoers typically engage (Ellison, 1993). Indeed, Emile Durkheim hypothesized that religion prevents suicide not through religious doctrine, but by creating for the individual a ‘‘regulated society’’ (Trovato, 1992). The church may be especially important for African]Americans. It is the only institution in the African]American community that is completely financed and controlled by African]Americans (Taylor et al., 1987; Taylor, 1988a). It is a powerful institution in which African]American individuals can attain positions of status and respect which might be unavailable to them in mainstream White society (Hughes and Demo, 1990; Ellison, 1993). Such roles provide an opportunity for African]Americans to learn skills that will benefit them in work and social endeavors both within and outside of the church. This training ground contributes to the success of African]Americans, and provides role models for younger African]Americans (Mamiya and Lincoln, 1990; Brown, 1991). Further, these roles result in the development of Black leaders who may contribute aid to the African]American community (Taylor et al., 1987). There is evidence that Black congregations engage in more charitable support of people in the surrounding community than do White congregations (Chaves and Higgins, 1992). The Black church serves additional functions as well. In essence, the church becomes a mechanism for racial socialization. The church provides members with a sense of group identity. Sermons and other activities provide churchgoers with a link to the past, as well

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as with a sense of group values and solidarity (Brown, 1991). The Black church also provides a mechanism for political action. Black churches have historically lead the fight for the rights of African]Americans (Taylor et al., 1987). Black congregations are more involved in civil rights activities than are White congregations (Chaves and Higgins, 1992). The church appears to be of greater importance to Black than to White Americans. Compared to Whites, African]Americans report higher levels of religiosity (Taylor et al., 1987; Taylor, 1988a,b ), salience of religious beliefs (Blaine and Crocker, 1995), church attendance (Taylor et al., 1987; Ellison, 1993; Blaine and Crocker, 1995), private prayer, Bible study, and religious coping strategies (Ellison, 1993; Blaine and Crocker, 1995). In addition, the strength of religious affiliation is a stronger predictor of subjective well-being in Blacks than in Whites. Blacks seem to derive well-being from their religious involvement more so than do Whites (St. George and McNamara, 1984; Blaine and Crocker, 1995). Although there is strong evidence that religious participation impacts perceptions of the self, findings are few and inconsistent regarding the effect of religion on racial selfperceptions. Blaine and Crocker (1995) found a positive relationship between the salience of African]American college students’ religious beliefs and their private collective selfesteem, or the positivity with which participants evaluated their ascribed social groups. It is unclear how to evaluate this evidence, however, given that Blaine and Crocker’s (1995) private collective self-esteem measure was not specific to participants’ racial identities, but assessed other ascribed social identities as well. In an investigation of racial identity and religious involvement, Hughes and Demo (1990) found a significant association between religious involvement and a strong Black identity. However, the results of this same study indicated that religiosity does not impact racial self-esteem (i.e. racial pride). Given the positive effect of religiosity in general, and the importance of the church in the African]American community in particular, it was hypothesized that religion may have a strong and direct impact on the subjective stigmatization of African]American adolescent. At a time when adolescents are increasingly in contact with mainstream White culture, the Black church may buffer them against the negative effects of discrimination and prevent them from internalizing negative stereotypes about their racial group (Mamiya and Lincoln, 1990). It was expected that measures of religiosity such as attitudes toward the church and church attendance would predict subjective stigmatization scores. Specifically, strong positive attitudes toward the church and frequent attendance were hypothesized to lead to destigmatization among African]American adolescents.

Racial socialization Outside of peers, we might think there is no more important determinant of adolescents’ self-perceptions than messages they receive from their parents. Specifically, it is likely that racial socialization plays an important role in the development of a positive racial self-concept among minority children. Such socialization is the primary means through which African]American parents negate the dominant culture’s negative messages about their race. In doing so, parents help insulate their children from the effects of racism (Jackson et al., 1988; Ogbu, 1988; Miller and Miller, 1990). Racial socialization also involves teaching children strategies for coping with racial discrimination (Andujo, 1988; Ogbu, 1988; Miller and Miller, 1990). Some research suggests that parents may accomplish

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these goals indirectly by acting as role models (Boykin and Toms, 1985; Ogbu, 1988; Knight et al., 1993b ). However, being a role model typically is not enough. Spencer (1983) reports that a lack of direct parental teaching leads to the adoption of Eurocentric values. Afrocentric values only appeared as a result of direct parental intervention. Direct socialization with an African]American perspective has been found to contribute to coping skills, mental health (Miller and Miller, 1990), feelings of personal efficacy, resilience, academic achievement (Bowman and Howard, 1985), and to long-term educational plans (Steinberg et al., 1992). Individuals whose parents emphasized racial pride and equality reported greater closeness to other Blacks (Demo and Hughes, 1990). Children whose parents taught them about civil rights and racial discrimination exhibited more Afrocentric values than children whose parents did not socialize their children in this way (Spencer, 1983). Only a few studies have found no relationship between racial socialization and ethnic identity development (Parham and Williams, 1993; Phinney and Chavira, 1995). The inconsistency of these findings may result from the use of different measures of racial socialization and racial identification. Amazingly, 30 to 36% of African]American parents extend no racial socialization messages to their children (Bowman and Howard, 1985; Thornton et al., 1990). Demographic variables such as age, gender, marital status, region, racial composition of neighborhood (Thornton et al., 1990), and generation in the United States (Knight et al., 1993a) predict whether or not parents convey racial socialization messages to their children. According to Thornton et al. (1990), older respondents, women, married people, and residents of the north-east (as opposed to the south) more actively convey racial socialization messages to their children. In addition, women were more likely to racially socialize their children when their neighborhood was integrated (half Black) than when it was all Black. Presumably, the racial tensions which exist in integrated settings may warrant more active racial socialization. According to Bowman and Howard (1985), the racial socialization messages African]American children receive fall into four main categories: (a) racial pride, (b) self development, (c) racial barriers, and (d) humanitarian values. When communicating racial pride messages, family members encourage a positive image of and strong commitment to the Black race. This racial socialization category also includes messages regarding the historical background of African]Americans. Self-development messages are devoid of racially-oriented knowledge. These messages encourage the development of skills and character, regardless of race. Racial barriers messages prepare children for the discrimination they are likely to encounter in the world. Finally, humanitarian values messages encourage a recognition of all people as equal, regardless of race. Bowman and Howard (1985) found that African]American parents tended to focus on racial pride messages when socializing their children. For 23% of families, this was the most salient racial socialization orientation. The next most common ‘‘primary’’ racial socialization orientation was self development (14%), followed closely by racial barriers (13%) and humanitarian values (12%). Further, there are four main mechanisms through which racial socialization messages may be transmitted. Socialization activities may involve direct instruction, modeling, feedback, or other-generated experience (Knight et al., 1993b ). Direct instruction involves the direct verbal teaching of racial information, whereas modeling involves the learning of racial knowledge through the observation of the behavior of family members. Feedback involves


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the learning of racial information based on the positive or negative feedback one receives about one’s behavior from family members. Finally, racial socialization occurs through other-generated experiences when family members selectively expose children to particular environments. The use of multiple mechanisms of racial socialization has been hypothesized to promote the development of positive ethnic identities in Mexican]American children (Knight et al., 1993b ). Use of more than one mode of socialization may aid children in the abstraction of racial knowledge. For example, African]American children whose parents tell them that ‘‘Blacks and Whites can be friends’’ (i.e. direct instruction) probably would be more likely to adopt that attitude if their parents actually have White friends than if they do not (i.e. modeling). However, the mode of socialization is not as important as the content of the message itself (Knight et al., 1993b ). Although parents may be wise to use multiple modes of racial socialization, it may not be prudent to socialize their children using multiple categories of messages, such as those defined by Bowman and Howard (1985). The process of abstracting racial knowledge from multiple categories of socialization messages may be impeded because messages from different categories often differ greatly, and even contradict one another. How does a child extract a meaningful rule from information such as ‘‘Whites and Blacks can be friends’’ (humanitarian values), ‘‘You should prefer other Blacks’’ (racial pride), ‘‘Have high hopes’’ (self development), and ‘‘Whites believe they are superior’’ (racial barriers). Each one of these messages alone may aid a child in understanding the racial environment he or she will encounter in the world, but together they generate no clear picture of the world. For children and adolescents, this kind of ambiguity may be difficult to cope with and resolve. Therefore, young people may benefit from racial socialization messages confined to a single category. Socialization based on a single category of messages is consistent across situations and time, and is not plagued by the contradictions which might characterize socialization activities which involve multiple categories of messages. In this study, it was expected that the overall amount of information adolescents received about what it means to be African]American directly would predict their level of subjective stigmatization. The more racial information children received from their families, the more destigmatized they were expected to be. In addition, some of the racial socialization orientations identified by Bowman and Howard (1985) might be more beneficial than others. No specific predictions were made, however, regarding possible differences in subjective stigmatization among participants receiving different primary racial socialization orientations. It was expected, however, that African]American adolescents who received socialization messages focused on race (i.e. racial barriers, racial pride, humanitarian values) would be more destigmatized than adolescents whose parents focused primarily on non-racial messages (i.e. self development). By focusing on raciallyoriented messages, it was assumed that family members would be able to address directly the negative stereotypes and attitudes that African-American adolescents might internalize about their race. Parents focusing on self-development messages might not be so successful at refuting such stereotypes and attributes. In addition, it was expected that having a primary socialization orientation, as opposed to having no clear primary orientation, would be beneficial in that the messages received by the adolescent would be consistent and would not contradict one another. Therefore, it

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was expected that adolescents whose parents focused on a single racial socialization orientation would be more destigmatized than would adolescents who received a more mixed bag of messages, with no primary orientation prevailing.

Subjective stigmatization Stigmatized social categories are those ‘‘categories about which others hold negative attitudes, stereotypes, and beliefs’’ (Crocker and Major, 1989, p. 609). As defined by Goffman (1963, p. 3), a stigma is a trait that makes a person ‘‘different in the category of persons available for him to be, and of a less desirable kind}in the extreme, a person who is quite thoroughly bad or dangerous or weak’’. All human differences are potentially stigmatizable. The dominant group in a culture determines which differences are undesirable (Coleman, 1986). In American society, being African]American is one such undesirable difference. Little is known about the effects of being a member of a stigmatized group. Several psychological theories (e.g. social comparison theory, reflected appraisal theory, social exchange theory, social identity theory, equity theory) suggest that the negative feedback stigmatized individuals receive should have negative consequences such as low self-esteem, self-hatred, and feelings of inferiority (Porter and Washington, 1979; Spencer and Markstrom-Adams, 1990, Crocker et al., 1991). However, it is clear that not all members of stigmatized groups exhibit such feelings (Hoelter, 1982; Castenell, 1985; Crocker and Major, 1989; Hallihan and Williams, 1990). Clearly, having a stigmatized characteristic is not sufficient to give rise to negative psychosocial outcomes. What is critical is an individual’s beliefs and feelings about his or her stigmatized attribute. For this reason, two people may share a stigmatized mark, i.e. objective stigmatization, without sharing subjective stigmatization. The concept of subjective stigmatization provides a way to assess individual differences in responses to possessing a stigmatized mark. This construct represents the degree to which an individual internalizes society’s negative stereotypes and attitudes about his or her stigmatized social group. Subjective stigmatization may be ordered along a continuum ranging from self-stigmatized to destigmatized. The self-stigmatized individual internalizes society’s devaluation of the self and of his or her stigmatized group. This person believes the negative stereotypes and is ashamed of his or her membership in that group. On the upper end of the continuum are those who recognize the stigma they bear and the devaluation it implies. These destigmatized individuals, however, do not internalize this devaluation (Coleman et al., 1993). Self-stigmatization has been linked to low self-esteem, negative self-concept, and feelings of inferiority (Goffman, 1963). Further, there are indications that such feelings of low self-worth are associated with negative psychological adjustment and antisocial behaviors such as homicide, drug abuse, teenage pregnancy, and academic underachievement (Gibbs, 1988). Such findings illustrate the importance of determining how one individual comes to be destigmatized while another, facing the same societal devaluation, is self-stigmatized. Despite its importance, little empirical research has addressed this issue. Although it is clear that not all objectively stigmatized individuals are subjectively stigmatized, we know little about what factors predict an individual’s level of subjective stigmatization. The purpose of the current research was to investigate the impact of familial religiosity and


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racial socialization on subjective stigmatization among African]American adolescents. These two constructs are of particular interest because they reflect two of the most critical influences in the African]American community, the church and the family (Billingsley and Howard Caldwell, 1991). The church, especially the Black church, is anticipated to directly affect adolescents’ attitudes toward their race. Further, racial socialization, or the process of passing racial information along to the next generation, is expected directly and powerfully to influence the extent to which African]American adolescents internalize negative attitudes about the Black race. In summary, this project was designed to examine the effects of religiosity and racial socialization on subjective stigmatization among African]American adolescents. Religiosity was hypothesized to lead to greater destigmatization among Black adolescents. Further, it was expected that the more racial socialization messages adolescents received from their parents about what it means to be Black, the more destigmatized they would be. In addition, adolescents whose parents focused on racially-based socialization messages were expected to be more destigmatized than adolescents whose parents focused on non-racial self-development messages. Finally, it was expected that adolescents whose parents focused on a single primary racial socialization orientation would be more destigmatized than adolescents whose parents had no primary orientation in their racial socialization messages.

Method Participants Two randomized listings of all Black sophomores and juniors at two metropolitan public high schools (Schools A and B) were generated, one corresponding to each school. The first 50 students on each of these lists were contacted at school. Two Black undergraduate research assistants and a Black adult experimenter explained the study to the students and invited them to participant. Students who expressed interest in participating were asked to sign an informed consent form and to have their parents sign it as well. A total of 50 African]American 10th and 11th grade students participated in the study. At School A, 29 out of the 50 students contacted participated in the study (58%). The response rate was substantially lower at School B, with only 21 out of the 50 students contacted participating (42%). Students at both schools failed to participate in the study for a variety of reasons. Some of the students we attempted to contact were unavailable because they had dropped out of school, were in the detention center, or had been transferred to a special school for pregnant teenagers. Some students were suspicious or distrustful of research. Other students told school administrators that they did not want to participate because they were uncomfortable talking about racial issues. Clearly, there was substantial self-selection in our sample. This fact may have important implications for the interpretation of the results of this study. The two high schools differed substantially in their racial composition. School A had an overall racial balance of 41% Black, 41% White, 12% Latino, 5% Asian]American, and 1% native American. School B, located in a predominantly Black neighborhood, was 70% Black, 20% White, 7% Latino, 2.5% Asian]American, and 0.5% native American. Students from the two schools did not differ with regard to their subjective stigmatization scores, F (1, 49) - 1. Of the participants, 24 were male and 26 were female. The average age of the students was 16.17 years, with a range from 15 to 18 years of age.

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Materials and procedure Each subject participated in an hour-long interview with two trained African]American undergraduate interviewers of their same sex. The interview questions covered a variety of issues (e.g. demographic information, early childhood racial experiences, cultural involvement, general impressions of being Black). In addition to the interview, each subject completed a questionnaire which included demographic questions as well as the Subjective Stigmatization Scale (Coleman et al., 1990). This measure of destigmatization contains 40 items assessing subjective stigmatization. Participants responded to each of the 40 items using a 5-point Likert scale, with 1 indicating that the participants considered an item to be very untrue and 5 indicating that the participants considered an item to be very true. These items were reversed when necessary and summed to create an overall destigmatization score. Missing values were replaced with the central value for the scale items (i.e. 3). This composite score had a possible range of 40 to 200, with higher scores indicating greater destigmatization. The Cronbach alpha for the 40 destigmatization items in this sample was 0.83. The test]retest coefficient for the scale is 0.76 (with month interval) (Coleman and Brega, 1998).

Religiosity Religiosity was measured using two variables, church attachment and church attendance. Church attachment represented the degree to which participants demonstrated positive attitudes toward the Black church and was coded from the responses to a single interview question: what do you think of the Black church? A 6-point Likert scale was used to measure church attachment, with 1 representing a very negative attitude toward the church (e.g. the Black church is harmful because it is based on a White institution and White teachings), and 6 representing a very positive attitude toward the church (e.g. the Black church has been extremely helpful in improving the lives of African]Americans). Church attendance measured the degree to which participants would attend church if the choice were entirely theirs. This variable was coded from a single interview question: would you go to church if it were left completely up to you? Responses were coded on a 6-point Likert scale with 1 indicating that participants already did not attend church by their own choice, 2 indicating that participants would not attend church if the decision to do so was up to them, 3 indicating that participants would probably not attend church if the choice were theirs, 4 indicating that participants probably would attend church by their own choice, 5 indicating that participants would definitely attend church if it were up to them, and 6 indicating that participants already attended church by their own choice. In addition, participants responded to a single questionnaire item designed to determine the racial composition of their churches. This Likert-scaled item ranged from 1 (all Black) to 5 (all White).

Racial socialization The participants’ responses to eight of the interview questions were used to code for racial socialization. Information was coded as part of a subject’s racial socialization process only when it emanated from family members. However, unlike many past studies, we included information from relatives other than parents. It was clear from our interviews and from more recent literature on racial socialization that other family members are active


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participants in the racial socialization process (Knight et al., 1993b ). The interview questions coded for racial socialization were (a) who are the most influential people in your life and what have they taught you? (all of the participants referred to at least one family member when answering this question); (b) has anyone talked to you about being a Black man or a Black woman? If so, what did they tell you? (c) What did your parents tell you about being Black when you were growing up? (d) How have your family members responded to racial incidents in the past? (e) Do your parents think that it is important for you to marry someone of your own race? Why or why not? (f) What would you tell your children about being Black and how is this different from what your parents told you? (g) Does your family participate in Black cultural activities? (h) Describe your last racial incident. What did your parents say about it? The use of these varied interview questions to assess racial socialization among our participants gave us the ability to incorporate the four mechanisms of racial socialization described above: direct instruction, modeling, feedback, and other-generated experience (Knight et al., 1993b ). The interview questions used to assess racial socialization touched upon each of these types of racial socialization processes. For example, interview questions (b) and (c) above assessed direct instruction, whereas question (d) touched upon the modeling of racial information, question (h) provided information about the kind of feedback children received from their family members regarding how they should handle racial situations, and question (g) assessed the degree to which family members selectively exposed the participants to environments in which they could learn about their race. Four racial socialization variables were created according to the taxonomy defined by Bowman and Howard (1985). The four variables were racial pride, self development, racial barriers, and humanitarian values. Each of these variables was coded by counting the number of unique socialization statements falling into each category. For ten of the study participants (20%), the racial socialization variables were coded by two people, the first author and a trained undergraduate assistant. Inter-rater reliability for the coding of these variables was 0.83. The scores for these four variables were summed to create a single variable representing the total amount of racial socialization received. In addition, the category containing the largest number of unique messages for a given subject was labeled his or her primary racial socialization orientation. This variable was a categorical variable with 1 indicating that a participant’s primary orientation was racial barriers, 2 indicating his or her orientation was self development, 3 indicating that the participant’s family focused on racial pride messages, 4 indicating that humanitarian values were the primary focus of a participant’s racial socialization, and 5 indicating that the participant had no primary racial socialization orientation. When no single category was utilized more often than the others, participants were considered to have no primary racial socialization orientation. To determine if any of the socialization orientations was more beneficial than the others in promoting destigmatization, six contrast coded variables were created representing all of the possible comparisons among the four primary racial socialization orientations. In this way, we could determine if, for example, adolescents who received primarily racial pride messages were better off in terms of subjective stigmatization than adolescents who received primarily self-development messages. Again, no specific predictions were made regarding the outcome of these analyses.

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Two other contrast coded variables were created to examine the impact of racial socialization on subjective stigmatization. The first variable indicated whether a subject had a racially-based primary orientation or a non-racially-based primary orientation. If their primary orientations were racial barriers, racial pride, or humanitarian values, the participants were assigned a +1 for this variable. If their primary orientation was self development, participants were assigned a y1. Subjects with no primary orientation were assigned a 0 for this variable. The second variable made it possible to compare participants who had primary orientations with those who did not. Participants with primary orientation were assigned a + 1, whereas participants who had no clear primary racial socialization orientation were assigned a y1.

Results We will begin by reporting some descriptive statistics regarding religiosity, racial socialization, and subjective stigmatization. A stepwise regression analysis examining the effects of religiosity and racial socialization will then be presented.

Religiosity Seventy-three per cent of the participants indicated that the congregations of their religious establishments were either mostly or all Black. An additional 18% reported that their churches were about half Black and half White. Only four participants (9%) indicated that their churches were either mostly or all White. For a large portion of the sample, therefore, the religiosity variables represented not only the influence of the church, but the influence of the Black church. There were no significant differences with respect to school for church commitment, church attachment, or racial composition of the church. Correlational analyses indicated that none of the independent variables or the dependent variable were significantly correlated with the racial composition of participants’ congregations. Therefore, all participants were included in the regression analyses, regardless of the racial composition of their churches. On a scale from 1 to 6, with 1 indicating strong negative attitudes towards the Black church and 6 indicating strong positive attitudes towards the Black church, the average score for church attachment among our participants was 4.39 (S.D.= 1.50). On average, participants were coded as having positive attitudes towards the Black church. Similarly, the mean for the church attendance variable was 4.13 (S.D.= 1.53), indicating that the average subject probably would attend church if it was his or her choice to do so. To verify that these two variables were valid measures of religiosity they were correlated with one another. It was expected that these two variables should demonstrate convergent validity. Presumably, participants who report positive attitudes towards the church should also be more likely to attend church. Indeed, church attachment and church attendance were strongly and positively correlated, r (34) = 0.50, p - 0.005. As one would expect, participants who had more positive attitudes towards the church were more likely to report that they would attend church if the choice were theirs.


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Racial socialization Unlike past studies (Bowman and Howard, 1985; Thornton et al., 1990), which have found that between 30% and 36% of Black parents do not racially socialize their children, all of the participants in this sample received at least some racial socialization messages. In fact, participants received an average of 6.38 unique socialization messages each (S.D.= 3.23) with a range of 1 to 15 messages reported. As in Bowman and Howard’s (1985) study, our participants were most likely to have been socialized through racial pride messages. Fifty-two per cent of our participants (26 participants) had racial pride as their primary racial socialization orientation. Twenty-six per cent of the participants (13 participants) had no clear primary orientation. Just as Bowman and Howard (1985) found, 14% of our participants (seven participants) had been raised with a primary focus on self-development socialization messages. Humanitarian values was the primary orientation for 6% of the sample (three subjects). Only one subject (2%) had received primarily racial barriers socialization messages from their family members (see Figure 1). The mean subjective stigmatization scores for each of the primary racial socialization orientations are presented in Figure 2. The single participant for whom racial barriers was the primary racial socialization orientation had the highest subjective stigmatization score, indicating that he was the most destigmatized individual in the sample. The selfdevelopment orientation was associated with the next highest mean subjective

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Figure 2. Mean subjective sigmatization scores by primary racial socialization orientation. Larger numbers indicate greater stigmatization.

stigmatization score, followed by the racial pride orientation, and the humanitarian values orientation. The lowest mean subjective stigmatization score was associated with the 13 participants who had no clear racial socialization orientation.

Subjective stigmatization Although the subjective stigmatization score offers a possible range of 40 to 200, the actual data ranged only from a minimum score of 117 to a maximum score of 177. The mean subjective stigmatization score was 153.44 (S.D.= 13.38). Clearly, the sample did not include any extremely self-stigmatized individuals. The low level of variation associated with the stigmatization scores may indicate that very self-stigmatizing individuals were unwilling to participate in the study. Perhaps only those adolescents who were at least somewhat comfortable talking about and thinking about racial issues participated. The reduced variability in the subjective stigmatization scores may have attenuated the magnitude of the relationships investigated here.

Effects of religiosity and racial socialization on subjective stigmatization Because of the small sample size, it was not considered appropriate to include all five of the religiosity and racial socialization variables in a single multiple regression model. Therefore, the data were analysed using stepwise regression. All of the results of the regression analysis should be understood in terms of the full model. The contribution of each variable


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represents its ability to explain subjective stigmatization scores, above and beyond the other variables in the model. In all of the analyses, the variation in the degrees of freedom results from missing data. The stepwise regression model explained 33% of the variance observed in the subjective stigmatization scores, F (3, 33) = 5.77, p - 0.01. Of the five religiosity and racial socialization variables, three were included in the final model produced by the stepwise procedure. Church attendance explained 17% of the variance in subjective stigmatization scores. Controlling for the other independent variables, participants who reported being likely to attend church if the choice were theirs had significantly higher subjective stigmatization scores than did those who reported being unlikely to attend church by their own choice, F (1, 32) = 7.62, p - 0.01. The more likely participants were to attend church, the more destigmatized they were. Of the three racial socialization variables, two were significant predictors of subjective stigmatization over and above the contributions of church attendance. As expected, participants who had been socialized by their families through a single primary orientation were more destigmatized than participants who had no primary racial socialization orientation, F (1, 32) = 5.36, R 2 = 0.11, p - 0.05. The total number of racial socialization messages received was also a significant predictor of subjective stigmatization controlling for the other two variables, F (1, 32) = 5.68, R 2 = 0.08, p - 0.05. Contrary to our expectations, however, the more racial socialization messages participants received, the more self-stigmatized they were. Two variables were not included in the stepwise regression model. Church attachment was not a significant predictor of subjective stigmatization scores above and beyond the other variables in the model. It should be noted that church attachment may be a stronger predictor of subjective stigmatization than this analysis would make it appear. The strong correlation between church attachment and church attendance may make it difficult to see the independent contribution of the attachment variable. Also, contrary to our expectations, participants whose primary racial socialization orientations were raciallyfocused (i.e. racial pride, racial barriers, humanitarian values) did not differ in their subjective stigmatization scores from participants who were socialized primarily through self-development messages. The mean subjective stigmatization scores for each of the primary racial socialization categories presented in Figure 2 suggest that some of the socialization orientations may be more beneficial to African]American adolescents than others. Indeed, a regression model predicting subjective stigmatization scores from the categorical primary racial socialization variable indicated that subjective stigmatization scores were significantly higher for some of the orientations than for others, F (1, 45) = 6.71, R 2 = 0.12, p - 0.05. We had intended to conduct more specific analyses to determine exactly how the primary orientations differed. However, given the very small numbers of participants falling into each orientation category (e.g. one subject in the racial barriers category), such analyses were not possible. To better understand the unexpected negative relationship between the total number of racial socialization messages and the subjective stigmatization, a further post hoc correlation analysis was conducted. We hypothesized that there might be a relationship between the number of messages received and the type of messages received. Perhaps participants who received many messages received them from less beneficial categories. If this were the case, more messages would appear to be associated with negative outcomes. The total number of

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racial socialization messages, however, was negatively correlated with participants’ primary racial socialization orientations, r (50) = y0.33, p - 0.05. Therefore, subjects who received many racial socialization messages were actually more likely to fall into primary categories which could possibly be more beneficial. However, it should be emphasized that we cannot confirm that any of the orientations are more beneficial than the others, although the mean subjective stigmatization scores suggest such a possibility.

Discussion The findings of this study indicate that religiosity and racial socialization are important influences affecting Black adolescents’ levels of subjective stigmatization. Church attendance had a strong effect on subjective stigmatization scores. Participants who demonstrated high levels of religiosity as expressed through the belief that they would attend church by their own choice were more destigmatized than were participants who reported being less likely to attend church by their own choice. Overall positivity or negativity of attitudes toward the church did not predict subjective stigmatization. Two of the three racial socialization variables were also strong direct predictors of subjective stigmatization. The total number of racial socialization messages received was a significant predictor of the participants’ levels of subjective stigmatization. Contrary to our expectations, however, the greater the number of unique socialization messages participants received, the more self-stigmatized they were. As expected, participants whose parents focused on a single category of racial socialization messages were more destigmatized than participants who had no primary racial socialization orientation. However, it did not matter whether a participant’s primary racial socialization orientation focused on raciallybased messages or self-development messages. Participants whose parents focused on racial barriers, racial pride, or humanitarian values socialization messages did not differ in their levels of subjective stigmatization from participants whose parents focused on selfdevelopment messages.

Religiosity The current research contributes to a growing body of literature indicating that religiosity powerfully and positively impacts psychological well-being. In this study, adolescents who were strongly committed to the Black church (i.e. would attend church if it were their choice) were more destigmatized than adolescents who were less committed to the church. This study was unable to identify the precise mechanisms through which the Black church promotes destigmatization among African]American adolescents. Religion seems to provide a system of meaning, social support, and social control which is beneficial for people from various racial backgrounds. Religion in the form of the Black church may be especially beneficial for Black adolescents. Attending an overwhelmingly Black institution may increase Black adolescents’ integration in the Black community. Especially for those adolescents who spend much of their time in multiracial or primarily White environments, such integration may be a needed opportunity to receive social support and to learn about racial issues. The church itself may be a powerful source of racial socialization. Further, the Black church may promote destigmatization among African]American youth by providing models of powerful and highly respected Black adults. These role


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models may help adolescents to reject stereotypes about the inferiority of Blacks, and encourage them to recognize that they too can achieve their goals. At a time when many Black youths are doubtful about their future prospects, such encouragement may be priceless.

Racial socialization Contrary to past research indicating that between 30% and 36% of African]American children receive no racial socialization messages whatsoever, all of our participants had received at least some information from their families about what it means to be Black (Bowman and Howard, 1985; Thornton et al., 1990). We believe there are three main reasons why our results differ so strikingly from these past studies. First, we believe that our interview process accessed more information regarding the socialization process because our interviewers were prepared to probe the participants when they answered a question simply by saying ‘‘nothing’’. Very often, participants gave important information about the socialization process in their households after first answering that they had received no socialization messages whatsoever. The importance of interviewers who are willing to probe for additional information cannot be overstated. Second, unlike some past researchers, we acknowledged the important role that family members other than parents play in the socialization process by including messages from non-parental family members in the coding of racial socialization. If we had only included messages from parents, there likely would have been participants who would have appeared to have received no racial socialization messages whatsoever. However, ignoring the impact that other family members (e.g. grandparents, aunts, uncles, brothers, sisters, etc.) have in the socialization process is misleading. There is no reason to believe that only parents can successfully pass racial knowledge along to the next generation. A third reason that none of our participants was categorized as having received no racial socialization information is that we coded information in a broader fashion than other studies have. In many previous studies, racial socialization has been conceived of as taking place during specific conversations about race, similar to the way we often picture a ‘‘birds and bees’’ discussion between parent and child. We would argue that racial socialization occurs everyday, sometimes through verbal and explicit teachings and sometimes through subtle verbal and non-verbal behavior. We included interview questions which allowed us to incorporate information about such things as involvement in cultural activities, the interpretation of racial events, and the modeling of coping mechanisms when faced with discrimination. These are important aspects of the passing along of racial knowledge which many past studies have neglected. One of our participants expressed this viewpoint nicely. I never had a conversation about what it really means to be Black. I picked it up from growing up around all my Black [relatives]. There wasn’t one intense conversation . . . little things add up.

As expected, participants with primary racial socialization orientations faired better in terms of subjective stigmatization than did participants without primary orientations. It seems that presenting racial information in a consistent fashion (e.g. consistently focusing on the development of personal skills and character regardless of race) benefits adolescents. Messages from different socialization categories have the potential to contradict one another or, at the very least, to paint a fuzzy picture of what it means to be Black. Such contradictions and ambiguities may make it difficult for adolescents to abstract any clear

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racial knowledge from their socialization experiences. Further, focusing on a single orientation may help adolescents know how to cope in racially-oriented situations. They cope the way they have always been taught to cope. If adolescents are inundated with multiple racial socialization orientations they may be overwhelmed by the possible means of coping at the same time that they are overwhelmed by negative racial incidents. This same reasoning may explain why a larger total number of racial socialization messages predicted greater subjective stigmatization. There may be a point at which more racial socialization information becomes too much for the adolescent to handle. At a time when adolescents are increasingly moving into a complex and sometimes hostile world outside of the family, perhaps racial socialization efforts are most effective when they are simple, concise, and consistent. It was expected that racially-focused orientations would result in greater destigmatization by directly addressing the stereotypes and negative attitudes which adolescents may internalize about being Black. The analysis indicated, however, that racially-focused socialization orientations were no more effective in combating subjective stigmatization than was the self-development orientation. It may be that self-development messages are not entirely devoid of racial context, and thus do not differ very much from the other socialization orientation messages. Adolescents gain racial information from sources other than their family members. Based on information from friends, their church, the media, or their own experiences, adolescents may apply a racial context to racially-void selfdevelopment messages. For example, based on personal experiences which indicate that much of what others say about them is racially-based, adolescents may apply a racial context to a socialization message such as ‘‘don’t worry about what others say about you’’. The message itself is not racially-focused, but the interpretation of it may be. Although participants’ scores on the Subjective Stigmatization Scale had the potential to range from extremely self-stigmatized to extremely destigmatized, there was very little variation on these scores within our sample. Whereas the central score on the scale is 120, the mean subjective stigmatization score for the sample was 153, indicating a very destigmatized sample. Indeed, the minimum score within our sample (117) was only slightly lower than the scale’s central score. These high scores and the low variation suggest some self-selection in our sample. It is not unreasonable to speculate that only the more destigmatized students were willing to participate in a study of the racial experiences of Black adolescents. Presumably, students who had internalized negative attitudes about being Black would find an hour-long interview focusing on what it means to them to be Black to be an uncomfortable, if not painful experience. Further, we might expect that only fairly destigmatized parents would consent for their children to participate. Therefore, our sample likely was composed of adolescents for whom race was a comfortable topic of conversation for them and their families alike. The self-selection present in our sample may have implications for the results of this study. The low variation may have made it difficult to see the relationships between the variables of interest at their full strength. Our results actually may underestimate the importance of religiosity and racial socialization in the lives of African]American adolescents. Further, because of the low variability in our sample, our results may not accurately represent the effects of religiosity and racial socialization in the larger population of Black adolescents. The impact of these variables may be different for very self-stigmatizing individuals. For example, it may be that those who have internalized negative attitudes


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about being Black would be less likely to become involved in the church, or at least the Black church, in the first place. In addition, for self-stigmatized adolescents, it may be important for a parent to focus his or her racial socialization activities on messages which directly address the negative stereotypes which their child has internalized (e.g. focusing on humanitarian values messages with a child who believes Blacks are inferior to Whites). Further research with a more variable sample of adolescents would help to address these issues. The negative self-concept and feelings of inferiority associated with subjective stigmatization may increase the likelihood of negative psychosocial and behavioral outcomes (Goffman, 1963; Gibbs, 1988). Research like the current study may allow us to intervene with stigmatized populations in order to prevent these negative outcomes. Our results indicate that interventions focusing on religious involvement and racial socialization might be fruitful.

Conclusion The current study provides evidence that religion is beneficial to African]American adolescents. Therefore, interventions might be designed to increase Black adolescents’ levels of commitment to and involvement in the church. However, interventions would benefit from further research designed to determine the mechanisms which underlie the positive impact that the church has on African]American adolescents. If the benefits of religiosity stem primarily from the church’s ability to integrate adolescents into the Black community and to provide Black role models, we may find that Black organizations other than the church can perform those same secular functions and thus those same benefits. However, it might be that destigmatization results from the specifically religious aspects of the church, those aspects which are common to all religious organizations. The perception that one is accepted and loved by God, for example, may encourage one to question negative feedback received from others. Parents might be encouraged to base their racial socialization messages on one primary theme, such as self development or humanitarian values, rather than expressing messages which stem from many different racial socialization categories. Such consistency may aid adolescents in determining how to respond to and cope with negative racial incidents. In addition, encouraging parents to engage in a moderate overall level of racial socialization may allow them to provide their children with needed racial information without overwhelming them. It is unclear at this point, however, what the optimal level of racial socialization might be. Attempts at intervention in the racial socialization process would benefit from future research designed to determine if certain racial socialization orientations are especially beneficial for the psychological well-being of African]American adolescents. In the current study, the mean subjective stigmatization scores associated with each of the primary racial socialization orientations suggest that messages from different racial socialization categories might be differentially capable of educating Black children and insulating them from the negative messages they receive from society about their racial group. Future research in this area might enable us to encourage parents to socialize their

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children, both male and female, using the most beneficial racial socialization messages possible. The research domain of subjective stigmatization is clearly ripe for good empirical investigation. This study alone points to several areas in which further research would be of great benefit. In addition, subjective stigmatization is an area in which the results of preliminary research can be applied to the stigmatized population of interest, whether that be African]American adolescents, obese populations, the gay community, or any other stigmatized group.

Acknowledgements The authors are indebted to Cleopatra Howard Caldwell, Gary McClleland, and Emilie Smith for their helpful comments on earlier versions of this manuscript.

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