Exploring whether and how Black and White parents talk with their children about race and Black Lives Matter

Previous research on parent-led race conversations reports robust racial differences in the content of race conversations between Black and white parents.

It was unknown, however, whether these racial differences shifted in the months immediately following the summer of 2020 when there was heightened public attention directed toward white parents, specifically, to talk with children about racism.

In the present study, researchers investigated whether and how Black (n = 344) and white (n = 381) parents talked about Black Lives Matter (BLM) with their 8- to 11-year-old children. Overall, 80% of parents (n = 725) reported talking about BLM, but Black parents were significantly more likely to discuss BLM than white parents (p = .008). Further qualitative analysis of the content of parents’ reports showed that Black parents were significantly more likely than white parents to provide responses about BLM that acknowledge racial inequality in society or explicitly affirm/support Black lives. White parents, in contrast, were significantly more likely to discuss BLM by focusing on equality but without acknowledging racial injustice or to provide responses that lacked clarity and/or substance.

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