Young Black Children Research Articles

A network analysis of psychopathology in young Black children: Implications for predicting outcomes in adolescence

ObjectiveNetwork analysis may identify specific symptoms involved in the maintenance and development of psychopathology. This approach, however, has not been applied to the study of young Black children, a population facing unique challenges and developmental risks. It is also unclear whether network analysis identifies early symptoms in Black children that are linked to their longer-term difficulties and strengths in adolescence. MethodsWe conducted a network analysis of emotional and behavioral difficulties in 1238 Black (non-Hispanic) children from the age-3 assessment in the Future of Families and Child Wellbeing Study (47 % female). We also explored whether early childhood symptoms predict subsequent caregiver-reported internalizing and externalizing problems, and youth-reported social competencies and extracurricular and community involvement, at the age-15 assessment. ResultsWe identified specific symptoms of externalizing and emotional reactivity as central in the network. Symptoms of emotional reactivity were also involved in comorbidity, bridging different communities of symptoms. Using elastic net models, we identified specific central and bridge symptoms, but also peripheral network symptoms, that contributed uniquely to the prediction of internalizing and externalizing problems in adolescence. Early childhood symptoms were less predictive of positive outcomes in adolescence. ConclusionsThis study identified central and bridge symptoms in young Black children, an underrepresented population in network analysis research. Some of these central and bridge symptoms, but also peripheral network symptoms, may be useful targets in early interventions to prevent long-term difficulties. Conversely, network approaches to understanding early psychopathology may have less utility for predicting Black children's subsequent strengths in adolescence.

Amplifying the Encounters of Young Black Children with Anti-Black Racism: An Exploration of Parents’ and Early Childhood Educators’ Perspectives on Early Learning and Child Care Environments

There is ongoing attention to equity and inclusion in early learning but a paucity of stories on diverse experiences. This study sought to understand the experiences of Black children in Nova Scotian early learning and child care environments through the perspectives of their parents and early childhood educators (ECEs) working in African Nova Scotian (ANS) communities or with Black children in Nova Scotia, Canada. Following in-depth interviews with parents and ECEs (n=15) three interrelated themes were identified using reflexive thematic analysis: anti-Black approach to curriculum; inaction on racism, social justice, and equity; and precluding Black children from culturally safe environments. The results highlight critical issues of racism in early learning environments and the importance of building culturally safe environments for young Black children and their families.

Peer Victimization among Black Preschoolers: Roles of Emotion Knowledge, Teacher-Child Relationships, and Gender

This study examined whether varying dimensions of teacher-child relationship quality and gender moderated associations between knowledge of negative emotion-eliciting situations and peer victimization among Black preschoolers (60 boys, 54 girls) who ranged in age from 35 to 65 months. Fifty-one children had a Black teacher, 46 had a White teacher, and 17 had a Latine teacher. All teachers were female. Knowledge of negative emotion-eliciting situations was assessed directly in the fall. Lead teachers reported on teacher-child relationship quality between September and December. A second teacher completed peer victimization ratings in the spring of the following year. When teacher-child closeness was high, there was a positive association between knowledge of negative emotion-eliciting situations and physical victimization, but a negative association emerged when teacher-child closeness was low. In accord with the victim schema model that undergirded this study, knowledge of negative emotion-eliciting situations was negatively related to physical victimization for children who experienced high teacher-child conflict and dependency. Black teachers perceived more relational victimization. Our findings highlight the need for further examination of peer victimization among young Black children and suggest that identifying the individual and ecological correlates of peer victimization should be a priority for school psychologists working in early educational contexts.

“It’s How You’re Delivering These Messages”: An Examination of Black Women Early Childhood Educators’ Liberatory Practices Through Poetic Inquiry

ABSTRACT Over the course of 18 months, I found myself on a journey that began with two research questions based on my wonderings and observations about the lives of the women I witnessed engaging with young Black children in ways that the academic literature had not expounded upon. In this article, I use poetic inquiry to elucidate the liberatory practices of five Black women early childhood educators in a southwestern state. Rooted in Black feminist thought and ars spirituality, I analyzed my co-researchers’ narrative portraits to craft found poems that explored the connection between their embodiment of reciprocal authenticity and liberatory practices that further developed young Black children’s critical consciousness. As a means of (re)claiming my responsibility as a scholar and teacher educator, I provide the reader with poetic offerings that speak to the intergenerational freedom dreams of these Black women educators.

African-centered education (ACE): Strategies to advance culturally responsive pedagogy and equitable learning opportunities for young Black children

ABSTRACTFor too long, Black children’s educational needs have not been prioritized with attention to their culture, language, historical and contemporary racialized experiences, and building their positive racial identity. It is critical that early childhood education settings for young children be transformed to be a place of learning and healing by centering Black children’s cultural identity through African-centered education (ACE). Through ACE practices, Black children can find meaningful connections with their ancestral heritage to expand on their knowledge. In this article, we discuss the need and the history of ACE, its link to Black children’s well-being and outcomes, the status of these types of programming, and educational leaders’ understanding of what ACE entails. Finally, we end with ways to integrate ACE in early childhood through the R.I.C.H.E.R. framework. It is critical that the full humanity and cultural roots of Black children are centered on delivering on the promise of equal educational opportunity.

Healthcare Use Among Black and White Congenital Heart Disease Medicaid Enrollees.

Congenital heart disease (CHD) is the most common birth anomaly in the US. Research shows lost-to-follow-up trends and racial disparities in healthcare use. This study examines racial differences in healthcare use among Medicaid-covered children with CHD. Using 2010-2019 claims data from a pediatric Medicaid Accountable Care Organization, 960 Black and White children with complex CHD and ≥ 3years of continuous Medicaid coverage were identified. Three cohorts were constructed (starting age: < 1-year-olds, 1-5-year-olds, 6-15-year-olds) and followed for 3years. Multivariate analysis assessed annual healthcare use (cardiology, primary care, emergency department) by race, adjusting for patient and provider covariates. Overall, 51% of patients had an annual cardiology visit, and 54% had an annual primary care visit. Among the 1-5-year-old cohort, Black children were predicted to be 13% less likely to have an annual cardiology visit compared to their White counterparts (p = 0.001). Older Black children were predicted to be more likely to have a primary care visit compared to their White counterparts. Nearly half of Medicaid-enrolled children with complex CHD did not receive recommended cardiology care. Young Black children were less likely to receive an annual cardiac visit, while older Black children were more likely to receive primary care. While the percentage with an annual cardiac visit was low, the majority had seen a cardiologist within the 3-year window, suggesting these children are still receiving cardiology care, if less frequently than recommended. Opportunities exist for cardiology and primary care to collaborate to ensure patients receive timely recommended care.

African Vernacular Symbols of Black Intersex Children in Sinethemba Ngubane's Installations (2007-2016)

African Vernacular Symbols of Black Intersex Children in Sinethemba Ngubane's Installations (2007-2016)

Pathways to emotion regulation in young Black children: An attachment perspective.

Attachment theory proposes that a central function of caregivers is to provide protection and co-regulation of children's distress in the context of threat, and that children's secure attachment (confidence in a secure base/safe haven when needed) precipitates positive developmental cascades in part by supporting children's emotion regulation. Yet the field of attachment has rarely considered the unique experiences of African American families, including the context of systemic racism in which caregivers must provide physical and emotional protection for their children, and in which children must learn to regulate emotion across different sociocultural contexts (emotional flexibility and "code-switching"; Dunbar et al., 2022a; Lozada et al., 2022; Stern et al., 2022b). This chapter brings attachment theory into conversation with the field of positive Black youth development to explore pathways to emotion regulation in African American children during early childhood. In doing so, we (a) highlight the strengths of African American caregivers in providing unique and specific forms of protection via racial and emotional socialization; (b) review research on predictors and consequences of secure caregiver-child relationships in Black families, with a focus on the outcome of child emotion regulation; (c) present a theoretical framework for understanding cascades of positive Black youth development via healthy relationships and emotion regulation; and (d) outline promising new directions for more inclusive and just attachment research.

Teddy And Roosevelt

What does it mean to be a friend? What role do heroes play in forming our values and ethics? In this work of philosophical short story fiction, Roosevelt is a young black child who is obsessed with the life and philosophies of President “Teddy” Roosevelt. He is new at the school and due to an issue with other students he is forced into the “Friends Group;” a social adjustment group for students the school have deemed at-risk. While in the group he meets Teddy, an overweight boy who has been in the group for years because he pulled an X-ACTO knife in art class on a fellow student who continued to bully him about his weight. The two misfit boys develop a friendship. Roosevelt teaches Teddy how to fight, as well as imparting bits of wit and wisdom from his hero, Teddy Roosevelt. Things go awry when they are caught swimming naked in Teddy’s pool. The school rumor mill spreads that they are gay. This leads to the school forcing the two boys to fight after school. Roosevelt decides that Teddy has more to lose and is less prepared to deal with the consequences of the altercation, so he allows himself to lose the fight. As Teddy Roosevelt said, “No man is worth his salt who is not ready at all times to risk his body – to risk his well-being – to risk his life – in a great cause.”

Lead teacher, assistant teacher, and peer racial/ethnic match and child outcomes for Black children enrolled in enhanced high-quality early care and education programs

Teacher-child racial match has been shown to benefit young Black children, but less is known about the degree to which the match is with the lead teacher or the assistant, and if the preschool racial context moderates this association. This study utilized existing data collected during the 2014–15 through 2018–19 school years in 20 high-quality preschools that enrolled children from households/families with low-income. Analyses of data from 2553 preschool-age Black children enrolled in 418 classrooms revealed that most Black children (82%) were enrolled in preschools with a majority (>=50%) of Black peers, and children in Black Majority preschools were more likely to experience teacher-child racial match with lead and assistant teachers. Racial match with lead and/or assistant teachers were associated with teacher demographic and beliefs differences but not differences in classroom instructional support or child outcomes. Black Majority preschool enrollment was also associated with more problem-behaviors but not other outcomes. However, within Black Majority schools, behavior concerns were reduced when the assistant teacher was a racial match and child initiative was higher when both the teachers were a match. In sum, the effect of teacher-child racial match for Black children should be considered jointly with co-occurring ecological contexts that typify the proximal effects of systemic racism like the preschool racial composition.

To Boldly Go: How Nichelle Nichols and Star Trek Helped Advance Civil Rights by Angela Dalton

Reviewed by: To Boldly Go: How Nichelle Nichols and Star Trek Helped Advance Civil Rights by Angela Dalton Kate Quealy-Gainer, Editor Dalton, Angela To Boldly Go: How Nichelle Nichols and Star Trek Helped Advance Civil Rights; illus. by Lauren Semmer. Harper, 2023 [40p] Trade ed. ISBN 9780063073210 $18.99 E-book ed. ISBN 9780063292796 $12.99 Reviewed from digital galleys R* 6-10 yrs Star Trek is a family favorite in our narrator’s house, and while the little Black girl loves the show’s intergalactic travels, she is especially thrilled to see a face like her own in Lieutenant Uhura. With that framing, the picture book biography then launches into a thoughtful, energetic look at the life of actress Nichelle Nichols, who ultimately saw her role on Star Trek as a way to engage with the civil rights movement and eventually advocate for diversity in NASA astronauts. The book [End Page 152] touches on Nichols’ childhood and her experiences as a dancer and singer, but the focus is mostly on her time at Star Trek, relaying both her excitement at bringing Uhura to life and the racism and complacency of Hollywood that almost made her quit the show—until a conversation with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. highlighted her unique position to be a role model for young Black children. Nichols’ story makes for an engrossing biography, and Dalton’s candid, direct text and Semmer’s bold illustrations expertly capture her fierce intellect and genial nature. The framework that places a young Black girl as the narrator of Nichols’ life is especially effective, emphasizing Nichols’ place among iconic Black actors. The stylized digital art has an appropriately funky ’60s palette with thick saturation and flattened but still dynamic figures. A closing note highlights Nichols’ work with NASA and her campaign to bring in women and BIPOC scientists. Copyright © 2022 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

Awakening the essence of classroom community building

In continuing the legacy of community-mindedness, good Black educators today consistently enact emancipatory pedagogies designed to protect Black children’s personhood. Cultivating community in the classroom setting is one ritual they use toward affirming young Black children’s literate character, presence, and pursuits, and they do so in the midst of constant disruption to Black children’s language and literacy development imposed by eurocentric curriculum and instruction. This Afrocentric case study, or Afronography, draws on dialogic discussions and video-recorded teaching sessions to examine the classroom community-building practices of one African American woman educator during her literacy instruction with Black third graders. Data analysis revealed that the teacher created opportunities for her Black students to increase their sense of belonging in the classroom.

Prison abolition literacies as Pro-Black pedagogy in early childhood education

The prison abolition movement has brought attention to the American carceral crisis, or better yet, the mass incarceration and disproportionate criminalization of Black people in America. It has also led to and fomented recent calls to defund prison systems, the police, and to remove police from schools. While discussions of prison abolition have been addressed in the carceral studies literature, they are seldom addressed in the education literature and particularly in early childhood education. Given the ways in which young Black children are and have been negatively impacted by issues of mass incarceration (e.g. absence of family members, school-prison nexus), the lack of attention to the American carceral crisis and teaching about prison abolition is beyond concerning and contributes to the stanchless anti-Black violence Black children face in early childhood classrooms. Drawing on Pro-Blackness, the imprisoned Black radical tradition, and abolitionist teaching, we introduce what we term prison abolition literacies– literacies practices that bring awareness to the injustices of the carceral state and encourage young children to become prison abolitionists––so that teachers can infuse prison abolition into the early childhood education curriculum.

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Promoting racial literacy in early childhood: Storybooks and conversations with young black children

AbstractRacial literacy as defined by Stevenson (2014) is an important cultural resistance strategy (e.g., positive coping strategy) for Black children and youth because it gives them the skills needed to survive in a racist society. Stevenson’s work, along with the work of several of his colleagues, focuses on adolescents and those in middle childhood, yet it has inspired us to postulate how racial literacy might be fostered in young children (ages 3–8). In this article, we propose a theoretical model for how racial literary can be fostered within shared‐reading contexts using racially affirming storybooks coupled with conversations grounded in the principles of ethnic‐racial socialization. We also propose that these conversations result in both a direct influence on racial literacy and an indirect influence via positive ethnic‐racial identity and emotion regulation and understanding.

Attending to the Adversity of Racism Against Young Black Children

The first 1,000 days is one of the most consequential times for children’s development. As a hugely ignored adversity embedded in all aspects of black children’s lives before birth and throughout their life course, racism in all forms deserves more attention in the developmental science literature. Racism—including structural, institutional, interpersonal, intrapersonal, and cultural—negatively impacts the health, learning, and well-being of black children, their families, and their communities. Using the Integrative Model for the Study of Developmental Competencies for Minority Children and Critical Race Theory frameworks, this article elucidates how racial disparities in every opportunity and outcome connected to black children and their ecosystem are due to white supremacy and anti-black racism. We call for urgent action focused on preservation, protection, and promotion to address white supremacy and combat anti-black racism through racial equity and culturally grounded science and policymaking.

Attending to the Adversity of Racism Against Young Black Children

Attending to the Adversity of Racism Against Young Black Children

Elevated blood pressure positively associates with alpha-1 microglobulin in prepubescent children: the ExAMIN Youth SA study.

Hypertension is a growing health concern in childhood populations and individuals of African descent. As the kidneys play a significant role in blood pressure regulation, we compared alpha-1 microglobulin (A1M) as a marker of proximal tubular function between young healthy black and white children (n = 957; aged: 5-9 years) and explored its association with blood pressure. The black children had higher levels of A1M (P < 0.001) and higher DBP (P < 0.001) when compared with their white counterparts. In multiple regression analysis, SBP (adj. R2 = 0.173, β = 0.151; P < 0.001) and DBP (adj. R2 = 0.110, β = 0.179; P < 0.001) associated positively with A1M in the black children. In binary logistic regression, each standard deviation increase in A1M increased the odds of having elevated blood pressure by 28% (P = 0.002) in the black group, independent of age, sex, BMI z-score and body height. No significance was reached in the white children. Our findings highlight the importance of a marker of proximal tubular function, especially in children of black ethnicity, in the setting of elevated blood pressure. Early childhood screening for elevated blood pressure remains essential in order to promote primary prevention of hypertension and early onset kidney damage in children.

“The Talk” and Parenting While Black in America: Centering Race, Resistance, and Refuge

“The Talk” refers to a specific type of racial socialization message that many Black parents have with their children about how to safely conduct themselves when interacting with police officers and other individuals in positions of power. With the recent increased exposure of racialized violence against Black people at the hands of police and vigilantes in the United States, many parents of young Black children now feel especially compelled to initiate these conversations to equip their children with the necessary knowledge to protect themselves when interacting with police officers. Black parents bear the unjust burden of striking a balance between alerting their children of possible harm while also not villainizing every member of law enforcement their child may encounter. This qualitative study examines “the Talk” occurring between 45 Black American parents and their young school-age children via observational methods. Findings of this study help to illuminate this critically important experience that characterizes Black familial processes and particularly the plight of parents socializing Black children. Implications for parent education and clinical interventions are also provided.

The role of infant and early childhood mental health consultation in reducing racial and gender relational and discipline disparities between Black and white preschoolers

AbstractThis study presents findings from an Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health Consultation (IECMHC) initiative in Arizona called Smart Support. The IECMHC used an early childhood mental health consultation model as an early childhood education intervention to address the needs of preschoolers with challenging behaviors. Disparities in teacher‐child relationships and discipline are some of the most persistent racial disparities impacting young Black children. The goal of IECMHC is to facilitate teachers' skills to respond to challenging child behavior and to shift teachers' internal representations of young children. This study is one of the first to link a statewide IECMHC intervention to the analysis of racial and gender teacher‐child relational and discipline disparities. Multilevel growth analyses examined whether child scores at baseline and growth over time differed as a function of child race and gender. At baseline, Black children, compared to white peers, and Black boys, compared to white boys, had higher teacher‐child conflict scores. These scores decreased more strongly over the course of IECMHC such that Black children's outcomes surpassed those of white peers by the end of consultation. A trend was also seen for the reduction of Black boys' preschool expulsion risk, although this trend was only marginally significant.