Journal of community psychology最新文献

Scholars of youth civic development have assessed agency using a wide range of constructs, including motivation, efficacy, empowerment, and sociopolitical control. We propose a multidimensional framework and describe the development and validation of a measure of civic agency, conceptualized as competence, drive, individual power, and collective power. In Study 1, we developed a set of items and employed exploratory factor analysis with a pilot sample of adolescents (N = 295, M_age = 17.1, 65.4% youth of color, 47.9% female, 15.8% nonbinary), which supported our hypothesized four-factor model of civic agency. In Study 2, we conducted confirmatory factor analysis of our final items with a separate adolescent sample (N = 1120, M_age = 16.2, 73.0% youth of color, 55.7% female, 23.3% nonbinary), which demonstrated measurement invariance on race/ethnicity, gender, and age. In Study 3, we validated our scale in a sample of young activists (N = 342, M_age = 19.1, 57.6% youth of color, 72.6% female, 23.0% nonbinary). Confirmatory factor analysis supported a four-dimensional hierarchical structure and we established measurement invariance between adolescents and young adults. Overall, the 16-item Civic Agency Measure consistently demonstrated validity and reliability. We discuss the utility of our work for advancing sociopolitical development theory and supporting adolescents' efforts for social change.

While research on the belonging of diverse student populations has grown over the past decades, it tends to overlook the ways subjective feelings of youth are embedded within inequitable societal and institutional structures. Drawing on concepts from critical affect theory, this article studies the experiences of racialized students at an urban secondary school to identify how teachers' affective practices structure their belonging in pedagogical spaces. The study included 16 students (7 female; 9 male), all of whom were adolescents aged between 14 and 17. The findings based on qualitative interviews with students and a constant comparative analytical method illustrate the ongoing role of earlier racialization experiences in figuring into their affective histories and shaping their present encounters with teachers. Student narratives particularly demonstrate how the systematic dismissal of their feelings, presence, and questions by teachers reinforced an atmosphere of alienation in their previous schools. Alternatively, in their current schools, teachers' attunement to students' emotions and diverse learning experiences, along with their ability to tune into students' lifeworlds through humor and friendly banter, seemed to generate an atmosphere of belonging. It is through such humanizing pedagogical practices that students who are marginalized by dominant power structures are affirmed as engaged learners who deserve equitable attention, care, and joy. By studying belonging as an affective praxis, this paper expands our understanding of belonging as a relational and political phenomenon, highlighting the need to develop teachers' critical emotional literacy and praxis.

This cross-sectional online survey considered how school diversity climate and parental involvement are related for ethnically or racially minoritized and majoritized parents of school-aged children (N = 1074) in the United Kingdom and Germany. Cross-group comparisons showed that parents in the United Kingdom reported more multicultural and assimilative, and less discriminatory school climates than parents in Germany. Across countries, minoritized parents reported less multiculturalism, more assimilationism, and more school discrimination than majoritized parents. As expected, multicultural school climate was positively related, and discriminatory school climate was negatively related to parental school involvement. Unexpectedly, assimilationism was positively related to school involvement for minoritized parents in Germany and not related to school involvement in the UK sample. Overall, our findings indicate that parental perceptions of school conditions matter for their school involvement. Consequently, schools may benefit from evaluating, refining, and communicating their diversity approaches to increase parental involvement, promote school adaptation, and reduce educational inequities.

This study adopted a mixed-methods approach to explore the critical consciousness (CC) of German preservice teachers regarding educational inequalities related to socioeconomic status (SES) and family migration history. We examined how CC manifests in preservice teachers, how the CC subcomponents relate to each other, and what factors predict CC. Preservice teachers (N = 93, M_age = 24.29 years, SD_age = 5.77) responded to open-ended questions capturing their CC and completed rating-scale measures of potential predictors (i.e., discrimination, taken classes on diversity and equity, social dominance orientation, subjective SES). Qualitative analysis revealed preservice teachers attributed educational inequalities to individual, structural, and parental capital factors. Proposed actions to reduce educational inequalities included equality and inclusion, individual support, critical action, and multicultural education. Quantitative analysis indicated discrimination experiences predicted critical action intentions. Understanding preservice teachers’ CC can guide targeted interventions and teacher training programs that equip them to effectively address educational inequalities.

This study investigates the effects of stereotype threat on academic performance among first- and second-generation students of migrant descent in Austria and evaluates the effectiveness of a multiple identity intervention in mitigating such effects. In a randomized classroom quasi-experiment (N = 452, Mage = 15.15, 67.7% female), students were exposed to stereotype activation or control prompts and assigned to a single or multiple identity reflection condition before completing a standardized test. Moderation analyses examined performance differences across migrant status groups. Second-generation students of migrant descent performed worse under stereotype activation, indicating stereotype threat susceptibility. The multiple identity intervention was associated with better performance for these students, though effects did not depend on stereotype activation and should be interpreted with caution. No significant effects were found for first-generation students of migrant descent. However, given their relatively small sample size, these null findings may also reflect limited statistical power. Findings suggest that stereotype threat poses specific challenges for second-generation students of migrant descent. Multiple identity interventions may enhance performance by activating broader identity resources. These results underline the importance of subgroup-sensitive identity interventions that can be implemented flexibly within diverse educational settings.