This special issue highlights biracial/multiracial/multiethnic early adolescents as a fast-growing demographic warranting greater inclusion in developmental research. We address several likely barriers to inclusion related to the conceptualization and measurement of biracial/multiracial/multiethnic status and offer recommendations for including…

School engagement has been found to be a statistically significant predictor of academic success. Education researchers are particularly interested in exploring the factors that influence the ways in which students are engaged in the classroom. As the population of students in the United States has become increasingly multicultural, it is…

An increasing body of research on critical consciousness explores how youth understand and react to inequality in their social contexts. The operationalization of critical consciousness remains inchoate, however. Developmental psychology traditionally conceptualizes critical consciousness as three components (critical reflection, political…

This study examined the associations among racial identity beliefs (centrality and public regard), racial discrimination, and academic engagement outcomes among 1,659 African American adolescents across two demographically distinct school districts, one predominantly Black, working class (n = 1,100) and one predominantly White, middle class (n =…

This study supported associations between three theoretically driven conceptualizations of racial and ethnic identity (REI; Multigroup Ethnic Identity Measure; Multidimensional Racial Identity Measure; Bicultural Identity Measure) and with adaptive functioning among Canadian indigenous adolescents in middle school to high school. Age differences…

Social identity, cultural socialization, intergroup contact hypothesis and group threat theories were used to examine White middle school adolescents' beliefs and attitudes toward Middle Eastern peers (Chaldeans). Ten focus group interviews in each of five Midwestern schools supported the hypothesized relationships between White majority/minority…

How are racial-ethnic identity and acculturation processes linked, and when do they have positive consequences for academic achievement and assimilation trajectory? To address these issues this study integrates two frameworks--segmented assimilation (Portes and Rumbaut 2001) and racial-ethnic self-schema (Oyserman et al. 2003)--that focus on how…

In this study, the authors examined (a) the protective potential of multiple components of ethnic and racial identity and (b) the aspects of an Africentric orientation for moderating psychobehavioral risk and protective factors for drug use among a sample of 333 urban low-income African American young adults. Ethnic and racial identity and…