What and How We See Matters: Critical Theories for Anti-Racist Adolescent Research

Abstract

The second installment of the Special Issue “Critical Approaches to Adolescent Development: Reflections on theories and methods for pursuing anti-racist developmental science” focuses primarily on theory and the theoretical lenses that shape how we “see” adolescents. Such a focus is necessary for moving forward anti-racist adolescent research. Theories serve as starting points, establishing our assumptions about what we know, the place where we move from. We cannot “do” better research if we do not take stock of what we “know” and more critically “how” we know it. The authors in this issue do this with candor, clarity, and intentionality, offering us theoretical frames that identify, name, and destabilize the status quo. They offer us anti-racist lenses and language to (re)define what adolescence and adolescent development is and does—and what it ought to be. They present theories that embed action and activism, that move us—across disciplines, outside of academic spaces, and into spaces that are often silenced and invisible. They shift our vision from objective, white-centric knowledge to multiple ways of knowing. It is our hope that the contributions in this double Special Issue will change how we see and do research with adolescents, and also change us as scholars and humans.