Goals
Increasing knowledge of racial and ethnic socialization as an important part of identity development.
Increasing the effective use of racial and ethnic socialization.
Supporting parents in managing their own experiences while helping their children learn positive messages about race and ethnicity.
Increasing attention to RES and related issues among researchers, research funders, practitioners, educators and other stakeholders.
Children are taught to notice differences between shapes and colors from a young age. Consequently, they also start noticing differences in the people around them. You are critical in guiding how they handle these differences.
People
Lauren G. Caldwell, JD, PhD, is the director of the Children, Youth and Families Office (CYFO) of the American Psychological Association. The CYFO coordinates and tracks APA initiatives related to children, youth and families across the organization. Housed in the Public Interest Directorate, CYFO works to fulfill APA's commitment to applying the science and practice of psychology to the fundamental problems of human welfare and the promotion of equitable and just treatment of all segments of society through education, program delivery, and policy design and implementation.
Keyona King-Tsikata is the director of the Office on Socioeconomic Status (OSES) of the American Psychological Association. OSES is responsible for directing, overseeing, facilitating and promoting psychology's contribution to the understanding of SES and the lives and well-being of the poor. As such, the office works to develop and facilitate relationships and activities to advance psychology as a major force in research, policy and advocacy related to SES.
Farzana Saleem, PhD, is an assistant professor in the Graduate School of Education at Stanford University. She earned her PhD in Clinical-Community Psychology from the George Washington University and completed an APA accredited internship, with a specialization in trauma, at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles. She completed a Ford Foundation and a University of California Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of California Los Angeles in Education, Psychiatry, and the Ralph J. Bunche Center for African American Studies. Her research examines the influence of racial stressors and culturally relevant practices on the psychological health, academic success, and well-being of Black adolescents and other youth of color. Saleem uses a strengths-focused and community-based lens in her research to study contextual nuance in the process and benefits of ethnic-racial socialization across families and schools. She also explores factors that can help youth manage the consequences of racial stress and trauma within family, school, and community contexts. Saleem uses her scholarship in each of these areas to inform the development and adaptation of tools, programs, and interventions focused on managing racial stressors, eradicating mental health and academic racial disparities, and promoting a healthy ethnic-racial identity development among Black adolescents and other youth of color.
Riana Elyse Anderson is an assistant professor in the Department of Health Behavior and Health Education at the University of Michigan's School of Public Health. She earned her PhD in clinical and community psychology at the University of Virginia and completed a clinical and community psychology doctoral internship at Yale University's School of Medicine. She also completed a postdoctoral fellowship in applied psychology at the University of Pennsylvania supported by the Ford and Robert Wood Johnson Foundations.
Anderson uses mixed methods in clinical interventions to study racial discrimination and socialization in Black families to reduce racial stress and trauma and improve psychological well-being and family functioning. She is particularly interested in how these factors predict familial functioning and subsequent child psychosocial well-being and health-related behaviors when enrolled in family-based interventions. Anderson is the developer and director of the EMBRace (Engaging, Managing, and Bonding through Race) intervention and loves to translate her work for a variety of audiences, particularly those whom she serves in the community, via blogs, video, and literary articles.
Shawn C. T. Jones, PhD, is an assistant professor of counseling psychology at Virginia Commonwealth University. His program of research principally seeks to challenge, clarify and correct the narrative concerning risk and resilience for Black youth and their families. He strives to better understand the interplay between race-related risk (e.g., racial discrimination, racism-related stress) and protective factors (e.g., racial identity, racial socialization, Africentricity) that influence Black youth psychological wellbeing. To that end, his investigations seek to move beyond understanding that racial/ethnic factors are protective, to unearthing the mechanisms and processes that explain how this protection is achieved. He employs both quantitative and qualitative methodologies—including utilizing mixed methods—and his strengths-based approach is grounded in cultural ecological models, acknowledging the role of individual and broader contextual (e.g., microsystem, macrosystem) factors. Lastly, as a scientist-practitioner, his research endeavors to answer these questions in the service of identifying avenues for prevention and intervention efforts.