Celebrating Scholarship and Creativity Day (2018-)

Document Type

Poster

Publication Date

5-1-2025

Disciplines

Social and Behavioral Sciences

Advisor

Majel R. Baker

Abstract

There have been approximately 110,000 Korean children adopted to the United States since the end of the Korean War in the 1950s (as cited in O. M. Kim et al., 2024). Many of these transracial adoptees were, and still are, placed into white, middle-class, Judeo-Christian families (Reynolds et al., 2017), resulting in what is termed transnational, transracial adoption (Lee, 2003). Historically, these white adoptive parents were advised to raise their Asian adoptee(s) no differently than a white biological child, with the goal of assimilation (as cited in Lee & Miller, 2009). As a result, Korean Adoptees may internalize harmful, White supremacy-based anti-Asian ideas about themselves (termed “internalized racism”). However, it’s possible that peer socialization and parental socialization may weaken these harmful ideologies that Korean adoptees may hold. This study hypothesized that 1) higher internalized racism (T1) relate to less Korean adoptee diasporic identity (T3) and lower racial and ethnic peer socialization (T3), and 2) higher racial and ethnic parental socialization (T1) relate to higher racial and ethnic peer socialization (T3). A secondary data analysis was conducted using the Korean Adoption Project data. Korean adoptees mainly across MN (N = 58) were surveyed twice, in 2007 as teens (T1) and in 2019 as adults (T3). Participants completed modified versions of the Cultural Socialization Scale (Johnston et al., 2007), Internalized Racism Scale (Song, 2009), and Diasporic Identity Scale (Kim et al., 2021). Results partially supported the hypotheses. Internalized racism was positively skewed, so Spearman's rho (ρ) was used. Internalized racism as a teen was not correlated with adult diasporic identity solidarity (ρ = -.15), adult attachment to Korea (ρ = -.04), or adult ethnic peer socialization (ρ = -.16), but it was significantly correlated with less adult racial peer ethnic socialization (ρ = -.36). Ethnic parental socialization as a teen was not correlated with adult ethnic peer socialization (r = .20) or racial peer socialization (r = .17). Lastly, racial parental socialization as a teen was also unrelated to adult ethnic peer socialization (r = .21) and racial peer socialization (r = -.02). Small sample size may have reduced our power to find statistically significant correlations, and many relationships were of the small effect size. Notably, internalized racism showed a significant negative correlation with racial peer socialization, suggesting that greater engagement in racial peer socialization may be associated with lower levels of internalized racism.

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