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Today — 22 January 2025Main stream

Promoting Identity Development, Multicultural Attitudes, and Civic Engagement Through Ethnic Studies: Evidence From a Natural Experiment

✇Wiley: Child Development: Table of Contents
By: Sarah Gillespie， Mirinda M. Morency， Elizabeth Fajemirokun， Gail M. Ferguson
20 January 2025 at 14:24

ABSTRACT

This study used a natural experiment design to examine the impact of ethnic studies courses on students' ethnic-racial identity (ERI) development, multicultural attitudes, and civic engagement during the 2021–2022 school year in Minneapolis, MN (N = 535; 33.5% White, 29.5% Black, 21.1% Latine, 10.7% multi-racial; 44.7% female, 7.1% non-binary). Compared to students who were quasi-randomly assigned to a control class, 9th graders taking an ethnic studies class (treatment group) engaged in significantly more midpoint ERI exploration (β = 0.12), resulting in stronger endpoint ERI resolution (β = 0.48–0.57). Increased exploration mediated more favorable attitudes toward multiculturalism (indirect effect = 0.05) and more frequent civic engagement activities (indirect effect = 0.02). Results have implications for policy efforts to expand ethnic studies.

“Oooh it Feels Good to be Black”: Racial Justice Organizing, Black Spaces, and Backlash in Higher Education

✇Wiley: Social and Personality Psychology Compass: Table of Contents
By: Gaurav Jashnani
20 January 2025 at 14:27

ABSTRACT

Black and other BIPOC students face substantial psychological and material harms from racism across predominantly white institutions of U.S. higher education. Drawing on interviews with Black organizers at the University of Missouri, this article asserts the centrality of space to the workings of student racial justice organizing. I examine some of the spaces that interviewees described—including official campus spaces as well protest spaces created by students—that contributed to their well-being and organizing success, and argue that students produced valuable knowledge and spaces through collective struggle that helped to foster a psychological shift toward power, pride, and unapologetic Blackness. I use these examples to argue that the liberatory tools and practices of student racial justice organizers are being increasingly dismantled, punished, and criminalized in the United States, most visibly in the prohibition of programs, policies, and content intended to foster racial equity and inclusion and in efforts to crush the multiracial student movement against war and genocide in Palestine.

Before yesterdayMain stream

Exploring the Dynamic Interplays of Morphological Awareness and Reading Skills in Chinese Children

✇Wiley: Child Development: Table of Contents
By: Zhenliang Wang， Wan Ding， Ruibo Xie， Xinchun Wu， Shiqing Wenren， Yue Xia
18 January 2025 at 06:49

ABSTRACT

Theoretical work has suggested close associations between morphological awareness (MA) and reading skills in Chinese; however, the nature and direction of these time-ordered links are little known. This study examined the interplays of MA and reading skills using a continuous-time modeling approach to three waves of two-year longitudinal data from first- (N = 149; 69 girls) and third-grade (N = 142; 74 girls) Chinese children. Results showed that (a) increases in MA predicted subsequent increases in reading skills (i.e., word-reading accuracy, word-reading fluency, and sentence-reading comprehension) and vice versa, (b) age only moderated the predictive effect of MA on sentence-reading comprehension, and (c) the magnitude of these effects was time-sensitive. The theoretical and educational implications of these findings are discussed.

Young Children's and Caregivers' Evaluations About Household Helping: Balancing the Interests of Helper and Recipient

✇Wiley: Child Development: Table of Contents
By: Marie Grace Martinez‐Mora， Audun Dahl
11 January 2025 at 11:10

ABSTRACT

Young children's helping can benefit both recipient and helper. This study examined how children and caregivers incorporate helper and recipient interests in evaluations of household helping. Data were collected throughout 2022. US children 4–6 years (N = 87; 47 girls, 40 boys; 71% European American, 23% Asian American, 14% Latinx, 3% Black, 2% Native American) and their caregivers were evaluated whether and why a child in hypothetical scenarios should help their parent. Children's judgments and reasoning incorporated both child helper and parent recipient interests, whereas caregivers' evaluations weighed child interests more heavily, ORs > 0.239. Caregiver judgments about obligation predicted children's judgments. Findings suggest that perceptions of whose interests are served shape judgments and decisions around young children's everyday prosocial behaviors.

Multimodal Measurement of Pubertal Development: Stage, Timing, Tempo, and Hormones

✇Wiley: Child Development: Table of Contents
By: Adam Omary， Mark Curtis， Theresa W. Cheng， Patrick Mair， Elizabeth A. Shirtcliff， Deanna M. Barch， Leah H. Somerville
8 January 2025 at 07:26

ABSTRACT

Using data from the Human Connectome Project in Development (N = 1304; ages 5–21 years; 50% male; 59% White, 17% Hispanic, 13% Black, 9% Asian), multiple measures (self-report, salivary hormones) and research designs (longitudinal, cross-sectional) were used to characterize age-related changes and sex differences in pubertal development. Both sexes exhibit a sigmoid trajectory of pubertal development; females show earlier pubertal timing and increased tempo ~9–13 years, while males show greater tempo ~14–18 years. All hormones increased with age, with sex differences in testosterone and DHEA levels and in testosterone rates of change. Higher testosterone and DHEA corresponded with earlier pubertal timing in both sexes. These findings characterize typical pubertal and hormonal development and inform best practices for handling puberty data.

Social support is fundamentally important for mental health among adolescents and emerging adults: Evidence across relationships and phases of the COVID‐19 pandemic

✇Wiley: Journal of Research on Adolescence: Table of Contents
By: Alicia Mitchell， Chloe L. Johnson， Emily Schroeder， G. Wei Ng， Jordan A. Booker
30 December 2024 at 03:29

Abstract

People are fundamentally driven to seek support, care, and validation from others. These are aspects of social support. Feeling sufficiently supported and cared for is important for wellness and mental health across adolescent and emerging adult development. Further, social support is valuable for wellness across both “mundane” periods of daily life as well as during times of turmoil and uncertainty. Guided by multiple frameworks on social motivation, social cognition, and ecological frameworks of development, we aimed to replicate and expand insights about social support, wellness, and mental health for adolescents and emerging adults, studying people living through periods of the COVID-19 pandemic. We studied reports of social support, coping and distress, and mental health concerns (i.e., depression and anxiety) from middle and high school age adolescents, as well as college-going emerging adults recruited during periods of COVID quarantine and following returns to in-person activities in the United States. Across eight samples, social support showed positive relations with coping strategies and negative relations with depressive and anxious problems. These findings were relevant for both adolescents and emerging adults; supported across multiple time points; involved support from family, friends, and other peers; and were sustained during periods of quarantine and the return to face-to-face daily activities. Our work both replicates and extends insights on the essential needs of feeling supported by close others for wellness and mental health and underscores the value of investing in additional infrastructure that can foster social support across multiple relationship domains (i.e., improving family relations and building spaces for peer and friend engagement in schools).

Investigating risk profiles of smartphone activities and psychosocial factors in adolescents during the COVID‐19 pandemic

✇Wiley: Journal of Research on Adolescence: Table of Contents
By: Ann‐Christin Haag， Elizabeth A. Nick， Mark S. Chen， Eva H. Telzer， Mitchell J. Prinstein， George A. Bonanno
30 December 2024 at 03:25

Abstract

Associations of adolescents' smartphone use and well-being have been contradictory. The present study investigates patterns of smartphone use and psychosocial risk / protective factors in US adolescents during COVID-19 and examines their associations with depression symptom trajectories from 5 yearly waves beginning prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. Latent profile analyses revealed three risk profiles, including a high risk profile (18.9% adolescents) characterized by elevated social media use, high levels of psychosocial risk, and low levels of protective variables. Latent growth mixture modeling identified three depression trajectories; stable low, moderate-increasing, and high-severely increasing depression. Both the moderate-increasing and high-severely increasing depression trajectories were associated with membership in the high risk profile. Results highlight the impacts of type of smartphone activity rather than use per se and can inform targeted intervention strategies.

LGBTQ+ youth policy and mental health: Indirect effects through school experiences

✇Wiley: Journal of Research on Adolescence: Table of Contents
By: Samantha A. Moran， Meg D. Bishop， Ryan J. Watson， Jessica N. Fish
30 December 2024 at 02:39

Abstract

The link between state policies and LGBTQ+ youth mental health is well-established, yet less well-understood are the mechanisms that drive these associations. We used a sample from the LGBTQ+ National Teen Survey (n = 8368) collected in 2022 to examine whether and to what degree LGBTQ+ inclusive school strategies, student perceptions of school safety, and experiences with bias-based bullying and peer victimization explain the association between state LGBTQ+ youth-focused policies and LGBTQ+ youth mental health symptomology. We observed significant indirect effects between policy and LGBTQ+ youth mental health through all four constructs, suggesting that each of these more proximal school experiences was independently implicated in this association. Findings underscore how state policies shape LGBTQ+ youth mental health symptomology via more proximal contexts and emphasize the importance of policy implementation following enactment.

How Latine youth's positive development unfold through farmwork in rural migrant farmworker families in the U.S. Midwest

✇Wiley: Journal of Research on Adolescence: Table of Contents
By: Xue Jiang， Zoe E. Taylor， Gustavo Carlo， J. Jill Suitor， Yumary Ruiz
30 December 2024 at 02:13

Abstract

Some Latine youth from rural migrant farmworker communities engage in farmwork to help support themselves and their families. Although research has documented their motives for working and some characteristics of their employment, knowledge about how these youth construct their work in the fields and how such experiences relate to their positive development is needed to depict their holistic experiences. Using mixed methods, we explored youth's farmwork experiences and examined how these experiences relate to youth's prosocial behaviors, civic responsibility, and ego-resiliency. Data are from a mixed-method study of Latine youth and parents in rural and agricultural families in the U.S. Midwest. The present study uses qualitative data from a subsample of 47 youth (Mage = 11.42, 48.8% boys) who participated in interviews and survey activities. Thematic coding of the interviews revealed sociocognitive, socioemotional, skilled-related, and physical experiences, as well as prosocial considerations that included perspective taking, moral reasoning, and empathetic concern. Integrating qualitative and quantitative data showed that these experiences were distinctively associated with higher other-oriented and lower self-oriented prosocial behaviors and higher ego-resiliency. Further, farmworker youth also showed significantly lower civic efficacy, indicating that farmwork may discourage some aspects of civic responsibility. The results can inform policy and program designs on promoting Latine youth's positive development in the face of adversity, such as by highlighting character development and bridging youth engagement with civic spheres.

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