Book Review: Shapeshifters: Black Girls and the Choreography of Citizenship

This review highlights Cox’s masterful ability explore how Black girls living in a Detroit homeless shelter navigate experiences with racism, poverty, and gender-based violence; talk back against stereotypes and controlling images; and highlight their right to citizenship

“My Teacher Doesn’t Like Me”: Perceptions of Teacher Discrimination and School Discipline among African-American and Caribbean Black Adolescent Girls

This study examined the impact of perceived teacher discrimination on the school discipline of African-American and Caribbean Black adolescent girls. The findings are drawn from a nationally representative sample of (n = 410) African-American and (n = 193) Caribbean Black adolescent girls age 13 to 17 (Mage = 15). Results indicate that perceiving discrimination from teachers was associated with higher school discipline (e.g., suspension, expulsion, and spending time in a jail, detention center) for African-American girls. For Caribbean Black girls, higher household income and school bonding was associated with lower school discipline. Older Caribbean Black girls were also more likely to receive higher school discipline. However, perceiving discrimination from teachers was not associated with school discipline for Caribbean Black girls. The developmental significance and implications for future research are discussed

Excavating New Constructs for Family Stress Theories in the Context of Everyday Life Experiences of Black American Families

Much of what happens inside Black families involves spillover effects and consequences of macro-level stressors. Racism is a major stressor that cascades through Black families\u27 lives, with detrimental consequences for their everyday life experiences. To understand ways in which Black families successfully navigate social, environment, and cultural pressures and constraints, we sought to gain insight into these processes by conducting a systematic, deep excavation, in order to (a) critically examine the adequacy and accuracy of traditional frameworks used to study stress in Black American families, (b) determine whether the studies of stress in Black families in the era of the first Black family in the White House stimulated new areas of research, and (c) advance the field of stress research in general and for Black Americans, in particular, by proposing a heuristic model anchored in a historical, contextual, life-span perspective, with emphasis on culturally specific strengths-based coping adaptation