"Racial socialization" was defined as a multidimensional construct that included teaching youth about racial barrier awareness, coping with racism and race-related discrimination, and the promotion of cross-racial relationships. "Ethnic socialization" was defined as a multidimensional construct that includes the socialization of youth in areas of African-American cultural values and intracultural interactions, African-American cultural embeddedness, African-American history, celebrating African-American heritage, and promotion of ethnic pride. The findings show that the ARESS measure, which was developed through focus group discussions and prior relevant research, displayed strong psychometric qualities. Racial socialization and ethnic socialization predicted positive adolescent functioning for most of the adolescent outcome variables. Mothers engaged in higher levels of racial socialization than paternal caregivers. This study provides a valid and reliable measure that could be used in direct work with African-American families as well as for empirical research. Using Confirmatory Factor Analysis, findings from 218 African-American adolescents (grades 9-12) were used in defining racial and ethnic socialization and in measuring the degree and effects of its occurrence among African-American youth. 3 tables and 42 references