Introduction to Mentored Scholarship: Mirrors, Windows, and Doors to Understanding and Supporting Research in Human Development

Abstract

Prior scholarship, especially in the behavioral and social sciences, has been based on narrow views of human development and particularly marked by the invisibility of minoritized youth. Responding to the call to reframe and broaden human development research, this special issue features four manuscripts led by undergraduate student-scholars with diverse lived experiences and social identities completing human development coursework and mentored by more senior scholars. The manuscripts represent interdisciplinary perspectives on human development and share an applied element, while including multi-method research designs and diverse populations in manners that are culturally, contextually, and developmentally grounded. In addition, this volume focuses on how emerging adults address misrepresentations and engage in narrative repair through critically studying human development theories, integrating these perspectives with their own lived experiences, and developing scholarship that promotes their development as well as the individuals or groups they seek to support. The mentored scholarship illustrated in this special issue provides mirrors so that diverse students can see themselves and their experiences reflected in developmental scholarship, windows for the field to see authentic representations of communities and experiences that are often marginalized, and doors that enable the co-construction of knowledge and engagement in research and practice. Together, this approach re-envisions the potential of scholarship and contributes to understanding and supporting innovative research, theory, and practice in human development in an inclusive and reciprocal manner that helps address pressing problems of inequities, inequality, and marginalization.