Category: Children and Family

Empowering Behaviors to Address Race with Kids (EmBARK): A Racial Socialization Program for White Families

Applied Developmental Psychology (2024) Authors: Katharine E. Scott, Nicole Huth, Eren Fukuda, Kristin Shutts, Patricia G. Devine Abstract: We evaluated the EmBARK (Empowering Behaviors to Address Race with Kids) program, which we developed to help White parents in the US address race and racial biases with their White 5- to 7-year-old children. Parents (N = …

Testing the Generalizability of Minimal Group Attitudes in Minority and Majority Race Children

Journal of Experimental Child Psychology (2025) Authors: Brenda Straka, Ashley E. Jordan, Alisha Osornio, May Ling Halim, Kristin Pauker, Kristina R. Olson, Yarrow Dunham, Sarah Gaither Abstract: The minimal group effect, in which people prefer ingroup members to outgroup members even when group membership is trivially constructed, has been studied extensively in psychological science. Despite …

Christy Starr’s Work Helps Parents Who Didn’t Go to College Motivate Their Children in STEM Classes

  A new special report in Education Week profiles IDS Affiliate Christy Starr‘s research looking at how parents who didn’t attend college themselves can better support their children’s motivation for STEM coursework. Starr, an assistant professor in the UW–Madison Department of Educational Psychology, studies how parental support can impact students’ motivation in STEM. The challenge is multifaceted. …

Parental Involvement in School: Black Fathers, Seen and Unseen

Race and Ethnicity Education (2025) Authors: Amanda Lockett and Janean Dilworth-Bart Abstract: Research exploring relations between parental involvement in their children’s school experiences and their resulting performance is critical to understanding how school-level procedures and higher level academic policy can better support the involvement needs and preferences of a diverse parent population. Yet, findings in this …

Using Media to Navigate Identity? U.S. Black Parents’ Encouragement and Selection of Content for their Children

Human Communication Research (2025) Authors: AnneMarie  McClain, Marie-Louise Mares Abstract: In an online experiment, 498 U.S. Black parents (child aged 3–5, 9–11, 15–17) were randomized to imagine their child had “an okay day” or experienced peer racism. They watched four age-appropriate video trailers that varied in affective tone (positive vs. mixed) and theme (race-related vs. not), rated …

An Overlooked Explanation for Increasing Suicidality: LGBQ Stressors Felt by More Students

Educational Researcher (2025) Authors: Joseph Cimpian and Mollie McQuillan Abstract: Recent data show rising suicidality among high school girls. We posit this increase may be related to an overlooked factor: more girls identifying as LGBQ. Using four cohorts of national Youth Risk Behavior Survey data (N = 22,562 females, N = 22,130 males), we found that LGBQ identification …

Material Hardship and Sources of Support for Autistic Adolescents and Their Families

Autism (2024) Authors: Kristy A. Anderson, Melissa Radey, Lauren Bishop, Nahime G Aguirre Mtanous, Jamie Koenig, Lindsay Shea Abstract: Our study looks at how families with autistic teenagers manage financially compared with families with teenagers who do not have autism. We know that money matters are a big part of life’s overall quality and that …

Diversity Science Podcast: Alvin Thomas on the Strength and Resilience of Black Fathers

  Dr. Alvin Thomas is a a clinical psychologist whose work sits at the intersection of positive child and youth development and father involvement. In this episode, he talks with Institute for Diversity Science Chair Angela Byars-Winston about how other researchers can approach work about Black boys and men, and how focusing on the strengths and resilience …

Systems Approaches for Uncovering Mechanisms of Structural Racism Impacting Children’s Environmental Health and Development

Early Childhood Research Quarterly (2024) Authors: Devon C. Payne-Sturges, Ellis Ballard, Janean Dilworth-Bart Abstract: Current approaches to identifying the impacts of structural racism on human development focus on downstream consequences or developmental outcomes rather than the upstream processes that create and perpetuate those negative consequences. Yet, the hallmarks of complex problems like structural racism include …

Measuring Social-Emotional Development in Schoolchildren: A National-Level Analysis of ECLS-B Cohort Data

Journal of School Psychology (2024) Authors: Quentin Riser, Heather Rouse, Ji Young Choi Abstract: The present study examined the social-emotional development items assessed by kindergarten teachers in the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Birth Cohort to determine the optimal factor structure underlying the items as well as the reliability and validity of the resulting factors. This study …