Race Coping Measure

• Dataset Code: CyAM
• Scored Data: RCMySCc
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Abstract

The 36-item Race Coping Measure was administered to African American children only. Children were asked about (a) the prevalence of conversations they have had with their parents or other family members about racially hostile situations and (b) the frequency in which parents or other family members provide a variety of coping responses to these racially hostile situations.

Six racially hostile situations were presented. The responses for each situation were coded as 1 for "yes" and 0 for "no". For each situation, four coping responses were offered. Children were asked to rate how often their parents or family members told them to do each in response to a racially hostile situation. The responses were coded on a 5-point scale where 0 represented "Never," 1 represented "Less than once a year," 2 represented "A couple of times a year," 3 represented "At least once a month," and 4 represented "At least once a week".

The first subscale Cope consists of the sum of the six questions regarding prevalence of conversations about racially hostile situations. Respondents who reported "no" to having conversations with their parents or other family members about all six of the racially hostile situations were given a score of 0. Respondents who reported "yes" to having conversation with their parents (or other family members) about all six of the racially hostile situations were given a score of 6.

To create the next four subscales, responses to the racially hostile situation were combined with the corresponding coping responses. The combination of these variables was required to prevent losing those cases who said "no" to the racially hostile situations. For example, if a respondent said "no" to the first question regarding conversations about a hostile situation and scored a "2" on the corresponding question regarding frequency of conversation about coping with particular racially hostile situation, they would get a score of "2" on the new variable. If a respondent said "yes" to the first question regarding conversations about a hostile situation, and scored a "2" on the corresponding question regarding frequency of conversation about coping with particular racially hostile situation, they would get a score of "3" on the new variable. Consequently, the new variables were coded such that "0" represented respondents who said no to having conversations about a racially hostile situation and never to a particular coping response. A "5" represented respondents who said yes to having conversations about a racially hostile situation and at least once a week to a particular coping response.

Then, each of these newly created variables were added together for each A, B, C, or D response and then averaged to create the subscales CopeA, CopeB, CopeC, and CopeD. Consequently, the CopeA subscale consists of the mean of 6 six items, and CopeB consists of the mean of 6 items, etc. These subscales ranged from 0 "no message", to 5 "At least once a week".

CopeA subscale represents a submissive coping style. CopeB represents an active avoidance coping style. CopeC reflects a contextualized, reality based agentic coping style. CopeD reflects a self-assertion coping style.

This measure should only be used with African American youth. The subscales are heavily skewed due to including the racially biases/hostile situation items in with the recoded coping variables. Users of the subscales may consider rescaling the subscales.

Keywords: Ethnicity, Racial Attitudes, Ethnic Stereotypes, Discrimination, Bias, Black Attitudes, Racial Identity, Racism, African-American Stereotype, Racial Harassment.

Administration History

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