Date of Conferral

2022

Degree

Ph.D.

School

Human Services

Advisor

Greg Murphy

Abstract

AbstractThe purpose of this study was to explore African American parents’ perceptions of racism and how it shaped their discussion, known as The Talk, that they had with their African American children. Critical race theory was the theoretical foundation. This theory helped explain the ideas and processes parents of African American children used to discuss perceptions of the African American culture. Through interviews, this generic qualitative study was focused on collecting data from parents of African American children who had to decide how to talk to their children about racial profiling. Ten parents raising African American children from age 13 to age 17 participated in open-ended interviews. Interviews focused on discussion topics that helped shape the parent-child conversation on what is perceived as proper behavior as an African American when faced with a police encounter. Saldana’s steps of analysis to sort the data and arrange it in the desired order, collected and transformed the information into meaningful data, transcribed the data and converted it into a written document, analyzed the interview results and interpreted the data meaning, and finally summarized and interpreted the data. Results indicated that (a) trust/distrust of police is still a problem in African American communities, (b) racial profiling always existed and is an injustice, (c) the talk is still a necessary discussion in African American households, (d) parents fear for their children during police encounters, and (e) police inappropriate actions/behaviors frame parents' perceptions. Social change implication of this study was to help African American parents and general public to understand the influence of perceptions and attitudes about racial profiling and how discussions may help keep their children safe.

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