Document Type
Article
Publication Date
8-8-2025
Abstract
Interracial parents face unique challenges in racially socializing their mixed-race children, but this socialization is imperative to their overall well-being and self-esteem. Using critical multiracial theory, the author argues that the interracial parents included in this study overwhelmingly understand the harm of promoting a monoracial paradigm of race when raising their children. They demonstrate this by implementing racial humility in their socialization practices to support and encourage the formation of a positive racial identity in their children. Drawing upon in-depth, semistructured interviews with 19 sets of interracial parents in the United States, the author identifies four themes related to how parents practice racial humility: (1) allowing their children to explore their mixed-race backgrounds by not forcing them to "pick a side," (2) using specific language to identify children’s unique racial background, (3) encouraging ethnic and cultural engagement through bilingualism, and (4) exposing children to toys and media that feature mixed-race characters and a spectrum of skin tones. This study contributes to literature examining racial socialization practices of multiracial families and expands the concept of "racial humility" to sociology.
This article was published Open Access through the CCU Libraries Open Access Publishing Fund. The article was first published in the journal Socius: https://doi.org/10.1177/23780231251355997
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Recommended Citation
Johnson, K. (2025). Beyond a Monoracial Paradigm: Parents Practicing Racial Humility in the Racial Socialization of Mixed-Race Children. Socius, 11. https://doi.org/10.1177/23780231251355997. Available at https://digitalcommons.coastal.edu/sociology/2/