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IntroductionEthnic-racial identity (ERI) is an important developmental process for ethnic-racial minority youth. However, little is known about how adverse life experiences may be related to ERI development. Thus, the current study evaluated prospective associations of emancipated foster youth's histories of childhood maltreatment and foster placement disruption with ERI centrality and ERI private regard, as well as the adaptive implications of ERI.MethodParticipants were 144 emancipated foster youth (69.4% female) from ethnic-racial minority backgrounds (27.8% Black, 32.6% Latinx, 39.6% multiracial) who participated in a longitudinal study of youth's adaptation to aging out of the US child welfare system. Youth reported on their childhood maltreatment severity and child welfare placement history at wave 1 (Mage_w1 = 19.62, SD = 1.11), and on their ERI centrality, ERI private regard, and socioemotional adjustment (i.e., social support, self-esteem, anxiety and depressive symptoms, and life satisfaction) five years later (Mage_w2 = 24.15).ResultsPath analyses revealed that childhood maltreatment severity and placement disruption were associated with lower ERI private regard, but not ERI centrality. Moreover, private regard was associated with better socioemotional adjustment (i.e., higher levels of self-esteem and social support), whereas centrality was related to poorer adjustment (i.e., lower levels of self-esteem and life satisfaction, and higher rates of anxiety and depressive symptoms), and these relations varied by ethnicity-race.ConclusionsThe current findings suggest that efforts to promote positive feelings toward one's ethnic-racial group membership can support ethnic-racial minority foster youth's capacity to negotiate developmental challenges in and beyond the child welfare system.

This longitudinal investigation evaluated parental cultural socialization practices as a central mechanism by which parents' cultural values influence developmental outcomes in ethnic–racial minority children. Drawing on a sample of 129 Latina mothers and their children (48.1% daughters and 51.9% sons), path analyses evaluated hypothesized individual and interactive contributions of mothers' Latina heritage and American mainstream cultural orientations to changes in children's self‐esteem via overt and covert cultural socialization practices. Mothers reported on their cultural orientation and socialization practices when their children were ages 5 and 8, respectively. Children reported their self‐esteem at ages 8 and 10. Controlling for family socioeconomic status, mothers' nativity status, and prior child self‐esteem, path analyses revealed a significant indirect effect from mothers' heritage orientation to increased child self‐esteem via overt cultural socialization practices. Interestingly, a multigroup analysis by gender showed that mothers' heritage orientation was positively related to overt and covert cultural socialization practices toward both daughters and sons, but the indirect paths to child self‐esteem through cultural socialization did not attain significance for daughters. Moreover, among sons, the indirect path through overt cultural socialization predicted increased self‐esteem, whereas the indirect path through covert cultural socialization predicted decreased self‐esteem. These findings show that cultural socialization is a salient process by which parental cultural orientation influences children's self‐esteem while highlighting the specificity of these effects across overt and covert expressions of cultural socialization and child gender. Efforts to promote positive self‐esteem among Latinx children should encourage parental cultural socialization practices, such as teaching, reading, and/or performing activities that celebrate the Latinx culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]