The association between parents’ ethnic socialization and interethnic contact among Hui and Han in China and the moderating role of essentialism

In a multiethnic country like China, ethnic membership is an important dimension ofsocial construction, and interethnic contact is a necessary component of socialinteractions. Family is the context where ethnic socialization takes place and whereparents play a relevant role. The present study focused on the Hui‐Han interethniccontext. Measures of perceived parent's ethnic socialization, interethnic contact,and essentialism were administrated to Hui minority (N= 560) and Han majority(N= 954) secondary students. Results indicated that parents' positive ethnicsocialization (cultural socialization/pluralism, promotion of harmony) was associatedwith greater positive and lower negative contact, while negative ethnic socialization(preparation for bias, promotion of mistrust) had opposite effects. Essentialist viewsof ethnicity moderated the associations of perceived parents' positive ethnicsocialization with positive contact: the association between positive ethnicsocialization and positive contact was stronger among individuals with lower(vs. higher) essentialist views. Results did not differ across the majority and theminority group. Implications for prompting positive interethnic interactions andpreventing negative contact are discussed.