Mothers’ preparation for bias and responses to children’s distress predict positive adjustment among Black children: an attachment perspective

Despite growing recognition that misdiagnoses of child abuse can lead to wrongful convictions, little empirical work has examined how the medical community may contribute to these errors. Previous research has documented the existence and content of stereotypes that associate race with child abuse. The current study examines whether emergency medical professionals rely on this stereotype to fill in gaps in ambiguous cases involving Black children, thereby increasing the potential for misdiagnoses of child abuse. Specifically, we tested whether the race-abuse stereotype led participants to attend to more abuse-related details than infection-related details when an infant patient was Black versus White. We also tested whether this heuristic decision-making would be affected by contextual case facts; specifically, we examined whether race bias would be exacerbated or mitigated by a family’s involvement with child protective services (CPS). Results showed that participants did exhibit some biased information processing in response to the experimental manipulations. Even so, the race-abuse stereotype and heuristic decision-making did not cause participants to diagnose a Black infant patient with abuse more often than a White infant patient, regardless of his family’s involvement with CPS. These findings help illuminate how race may lead to different outcomes in cases of potential child abuse, while also demonstrating potential pathways through which racial disparities in misdiagnosis of abuse and subsequent wrongful convictions can be prevented.

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Book Reviews

Boyhood Studies ◽

10.3167/bhs.2019.120107 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 12 (1) ◽

pp. 97-112

Author(s):

Erica Morales ◽

Alex Blower ◽

Samantha White ◽

Angelica Puzio ◽

Matthew Zbaracki

Keyword(s):

North Carolina ◽

Young Adult ◽

Justice System ◽

Juvenile Justice System ◽

Black Children ◽

Educational Success ◽

Urban Schooling ◽

Chapel Hill ◽

John Gray

Ingram, Nicola. 2018. Working-Class Boys and Educational Success: Teenage Identities, Masculinities, and Urban Schooling. London: Palgrave Macmillan.Pinkett, Matt, and Mark Roberts. 2019. Boys Don’t Try? Rethinking Masculinity in Schools. London: Routledge.Agyepong, Tera Eva. 2018. The Criminalization of Black Children: Race, Gender, and Delinquency in Chicago’s Juvenile Justice System, 1899–1945. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.Farrell, Warren, and John Gray. 2018. The Boy Crisis. Dallas, TX: BenBella Books.Potter, Troy. 2018. Books for Boys: Manipulating Genre in Contemporary Australian Young Adult Fiction.Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier.

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Family Life and School Achievement: Why Poor Black Children Succeed or Fail.Reginald M. ClarkJust Schools: The Idea of Racial Equality in American Education.David L. Kirp

American Journal of Sociology ◽

10.1086/228262 ◽

1985 ◽

Vol 91 (1) ◽

pp. 188-192

Author(s):

Thomas Hoffer

Keyword(s):

Family Life ◽

School Achievement ◽

Black Children ◽

Racial Equality

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Centering “Grace”: Challenging Anti-Blackness in Schooling Through Motherwork

Journal of School Leadership ◽

10.1177/1052684621993085 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 31 (1-2) ◽

pp. 142-157

Author(s):

Terri N. Watson ◽

Gwendolyn S. Baxley

Keyword(s):

Black Women ◽

School Leadership ◽

School Leaders ◽

Black Children ◽

The United States ◽

Black Girls ◽

Racial Biases ◽

Black Girlhood ◽

Patricia Hill Collins ◽

Educational Advocacy

Anti-Blackness is global and present in every facet of society, including education. In this article, we examine the challenges Black girls encounter in schools throughout the United States. Guided by select research centered on Black women in their roles as mothers, activists and school leaders, we assert that sociologist Patricia Hill Collins’ concept of Motherwork should be an essential component in reframing the praxis of school leadership and in helping school leaders to rethink policies, practices, and ideologies that are anti-Black and antithetical to Blackness and Black girlhood. While most research aimed to improve the schooling experiences of Black children focuses on teacher and school leader (mis)perceptions and systemic racial biases, few studies build on the care and efficacy personified by Black women school leaders. We argue that the educational advocacy of Black women on behalf of Black children is vital to culturally responsive school leadership that combats anti-Blackness and honors Black girlhood. We conclude with implications for school leaders and those concerned with the educational experiences of Black children, namely Black girls.

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“Subtle, vicious effects”: Lillian Steele Proctor's Pioneering Investigation of Gifted African American Children in Washington, DC

History of Education Quarterly ◽

10.1017/heq.2021.22 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 61 (3) ◽

pp. 351-371

Author(s):

Sevan G. Terzian

Keyword(s):

African American ◽

African American Youth ◽

Black Children ◽

Gifted Children ◽

Washington Dc ◽

Cultural Resources ◽

Systemic Racism ◽

Master's Thesis ◽

American Children ◽

Intellectual Potential

AbstractThis essay examines the first detailed study of gifted African American youth: Lillian Steele Proctor's master's thesis from the late 1920s on Black children in Washington, DC. Unlike formative research on gifted children by educational psychologists, Proctor's investigation emphasized children's experiences at school, home, and community in determining their abilities, opportunities, and accomplishments. Proctor's work also anticipated African American intellectuals’ critiques of racist claims about intelligence and giftedness that would flourish in the 1930s. In focusing on the nation's capital, her investigation drew from a municipality with a high proportion of African American residents that was segregated by law. Proctor pointed directly to systemic racism as both contributing to the relative invisibility of gifted African American youth and in thwarting opportunities to realize their intellectual potential. In an environment of racial subordination and segregation, these gifted children found themselves excluded from cultural resources and educational opportunities.

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