The prevalence of mental health challenges continues to worsen among adolescents, with Black American adolescents experiencing rates of suicide attempts that are increasing faster than any other racial and ethnic groups. Research has found that the neighborhood environment impacts mental health through the type and level of stress that people…

Purpose: This paper aims to contribute to a growing body of work (re)imagining the future for Black girls by calling Western notions of time into question. At its core, this paper argues that all Black girls are imaginative beings and that it is essential that Black girlhood imagination as a mode of future-making praxis be considered an integral…

Suicide rates among Black youth have risen faster than any other racial/ethnic group in the past two decades. Black youth residing in rural areas are subject to systemic challenges such as minimal access to mental healthcare providers, generational poverty and oppressive social structures that lead to racial discrimination. Racial discrimination…

This article is a review of the literature related to the cognitive, learning, behavioral, and cultural styles of African American children. This is an assessment of the progress that has been made since 1982 when my first book was published. Several flaws in the creation of the science that undergirds learning styles research related to African…

Purpose: A systematic review and synthesis was performed on published articles and dissertations produced between 1970 and 2013 that focused on selected pragmatic language behaviors of African American children and adolescents. Methods: Electronic databases and hand searches of articles located in the databases were used to identify the published…

Obesity and overweight prevalence in African American (AA) youth continues to be one of the highest of all major ethnic groups, which has led researchers to pursue culturally based approaches as a means to improve obesity prevention interventions. The purpose of this systematic review was to evaluate culturally adapted obesity prevention…

Background: The reported prevalence of depression and anxiety among African American children and adolescents and their negative sequalae suggest a need to further explore factors that may be protective of depression and anxiety among this population. Objective: The aim of this review was to examine empirical studies that focus on the association…

Objectives: To outline the prevalence and disparities of vision problems among school-aged urban minority youth, causal pathways through which vision problems adversely affects academic achievement, and proven or promising approaches for schools to address these problems. Methods: Literature review. Results: More than 20% of school-aged youth have…

In U.S. schools, African American students are typically fed steady diets of stereotypical and culturally invasive literature and often do not see themselves positively and consistently represented in books. The crisis is fueled, in part, by teachers who (for various reasons) do not include and draw upon counter-narratives in their classrooms.…

This paper reviews evidence on the family origins of racial differences in young children's test scores and considers how much of the gap is due to differences in the economic and demographic conditions in which black and white children grow up. Our review of the literature finds that the estimated size of the gaps varies considerably across…

Although interpersonal violence is evident in all strata of society, every geographical area in the country, and across each gender, it takes courage to acknowledge our passivity about the phenomena, particularly when people of color are involved. Thus, the mass incarcerations of African American men and women and data citing the…

Societal barriers to the successful education of Black children were identified by the noted historian Carter G. Woodson more than 70 years ago in his classic text "The Mis-Education of the Negro." Woodson argued that there were serious problems with inaccurate, ill-planned, depoliticized curriculum content and lack of resources, as well…

What is it about cultural diversity that challenges early childhood programs? One factor is that children enter early childhood and early intervention programs from families with a wide range of values and cultural experiences. Sometimes those values and experiences differ from those of the teachers and caregivers in those programs. Another factor…

"Data Trends" reports present summaries of research on mental health services for children and adolescents and their families. The article summarized in this "Data Trends" discusses research on mental health care utilization among young children, up to age seven, in a low-income urban setting. Overall, the study indicates that…

Effective intervention for early language delay in minority and poor children is difficult to provide because we know so little about its prevention, assessment, and treatment. This article provides an overview of an "integrative model of minority child development" that considers the influence of social factors such as race and class to explore…