Search for: All records

In this study, we drew on the m(ai)cro framework, which centers racism as a macrosystem, to examine how college-going emerging adults made meaning about society and themselves during the 2020 U.S. presidential election and 2021 inauguration. This period was marked by racial justice protests, a global pandemic, anti-Asian violence, and the storming of the U.S. Capitol by predominantly white Trump supporters. Using the constructs of critical consciousness and racial identity meaning making, we analyzed participants’ reports of recent race related conversations. Our sample included 47 students ( M_age = 19.71, SD = 1.72; 81% female, 17% male, 2% other; 45% Asian/Asian American, 30% white, 13% Latinx/Hispanic, 4% Black/African American, 4% Multiracial, 2% Middle Eastern/Arab) at a private, predominantly white university in the U.S. Midwest. Hybrid inductive-deductive analysis showed that a majority reported conversations with peers, focused primarily on racial inequity and justice. For many participants of color, conversations about topics including protests and anti-Asian violence were woven into their racial identities. In contrast, although many white participants discussed events such as the Capitol insurrection, none made links to their racial identities. Our findings highlight connections between critical consciousness and racial identity, and the importance of context and participant positionality in developmental research.

Children in the United States grow up in a context wherein colorblindness and racism coexist. This article examined how colorblindness functions as a societal “master narrative” that shapes how children construct their own racial identities. Data were collected via semi‐structured interviews with 217 Black, White, and Multiracial children (M_age = 9.92) in public schools in the Pacific Northwest during 2013–2014 academic year. Our analysis identified four race narratives, which varied systematically by child age and race. Associations were also found between narrative types and children’s ratings of racial identity importance. Although colorblindness infuses many of the racial narratives, there was evidence that children also question and disrupt this master narrative with stories of resistance that counter colorblind norms.

Every aspect of child development—from cognition to relationships—is shaped by macrolevel ideologies (e.g., white supremacy, patriarchy) that reflect the social hierarchies and embedded power structures of society. While ecological theories have long underscored the impact of macrosystems and cultures on humans, the field of child development has tended to overemphasize microsystems and often overlooks how ideologies of power shape developmental processes. In this article, we situate child development within and in response to the ideological context, which directs the field’s attention away from “fixing” individuals and microsystems and toward disrupting the macro‐ideologies that shape them. We ground this article in research on resistance and accommodation to such ideologies, revealing that humans have a natural capacity to resist what gets in the way of their ability to survive and thrive. We discuss questions that are necessary to address when integrating resistance and accommodation in the study of child development.

This commentary focuses on two important contrasts in the behavioral sciences: (i) default versus nondefault study populations, where default samples have been used disproportionately (for psychology, the default is undergraduates at major research universities), and (ii) the adoption of a distant versus close (engaged) attitude toward study samples. Previous research has shown a strong correlation between these contrasts, where default samples and distant perspectives are the norm. Distancing is sometimes seen as necessary for objectivity, and an engaged orientation is sometimes criticized as biased, advocacy research, especially if the researcher shares a social group membership with the study population (e.g., a black male researcher studying black male students). The lack of diversity in study samples has been paralleled by a lack of diversity in the researchers themselves. The salience of default samples and distancing in prior research creates potential (and presumed) risk factors for engaged research with nondefault samples. However, a distant perspective poses risks as well, and particularly so for research with nondefault populations. We suggest that engaged research can usefully encourage attention to the study context and taking the perspective of study samples, both of which are good research practices. More broadly, we argue that social and educational sciences need skepticism, interestedness, and engagement, not distancing. Fostering an engaged perspective in research may also foster a more diverse population of social scientists.

In the ecological systems perspective, gender ideologies are part of the macrosystem that shapes human development. A growing literature indicates that youth accommodate and resist such ideologies, with adherence to masculinity norms being linked with negative adjustment. Most masculinity research focuses on boys’ adherence to masculinity, but girls are also pressured to uphold masculinity norms. Using mixed modeling, we examined girls’ adherence to masculinity and psychological (self‐esteem, depressive symptoms) and social (peer support and conflict) well‐being in the United States (N = 407;M_age = 12.28) and China (N = 356;M_age = 12.41). In both countries, adherence to masculinity was negatively associated with psychosocial well‐being. Chinese girls reported greater masculinity adherence, but associations with psychosocial well‐being were not moderated by nationality.