International Journal of Education and Social Science (IJESS)

The ethnic socialization processes for children are specifically tailored and unique to African American and Latino(a) children within the same household experiencing the same racial barriers messages and dynamics. Lower social economic status and the inability or inadequacies to obtain adequate counseling and/or opportunities to foster a positive outcome, could inadvertently lead to delinquency. The deficiency in the development of generalized social reinforcers may exacerbate the propensity for delinquency and lead a child to ingress into adult criminality. Racial/Ethnic socialization is a way of referring to the process of parents or other significant caregivers communicating messages about race and ethnicity to their children. Without generalized social reinforcers from parents and family, and without generalization of these reinforcers to other adult representatives of society, socialization is likely to be underdeveloped and delinquency is likely to occur. The main purpose of this study is to explore the effectiveness of generalized social reinforcers to understand delinquency in terms of sociocultural, emotional, and psychological context. These constructs may emphasize the influence of the social environment and the interpersonal relationships that develop within the social environment on outcomes for children.