Edward Seidman

The Development of Ethnic Identity during Adolescence.

The development of ethnic identity is a critical facet of adolescence, particularly for adolescents of color. In order to examine the developmental trajectory of ethnic identity, African American, Latino American, and European American early and middle adolescents (N = 420) were assessed over 3 years. Two components of ethnic identity were assessed--group-esteem was found to rise for both early and middle adolescents; exploration rose for middle adolescents. African Americans and Latino Americans were lower in group-esteem but have greater increases than European Americans, particularly across a school transition. The course of ethnic identity development during early and middle adolescence, the role of school context, and the variability in developmental trajectories among racial and ethnic groups are discussed.

Back to the future, community psychology: unfolding a theory of social intervention.

Join me in my flux capacitor; it makes time travel possible. Let’s go back just over two decades. Date: May 4-8,1965; Place: Swampscott, Massachusetts; Event: the Conference on Education of Psychologists for Community Mental Health.

Development and validation of adolescent-perceived microsystem scales: Social support, daily hassles, and involvement

Developed and validated instruments for urban and culturally diverse adolescents to assess their self-reported transactions with family, peer, school, and neighborhood microsystems for the constructs of social support, daily hassles, and involvement. The sample of 998 youth were from schools in three Eastern cities with high percentages of economically disadvantaged youth. Data were collected before and after the transition to junior high school or to senior high school. Blacks constituted 26%, whites 26%, and Latinos 37% of the sample. Factor analyses confirmed and enhanced the hypothesized four-factor microsystem factor structure for support, hassles, and involvement; internal consistency and stability coefficients were consistent with these structures. In general, the microsystem factors were common across gender, ethnicity, and age. However, when group differences did occur on these demographic variables, they tended to validate the salience of microsystem specificity. In contrast to the total scores, the microsystem-specific factors yielded more meaningful and differential information with regard to demographic differences and the mediating processes across a school transition.

Toward the Integration of Education and Mental Health in Schools

Education and mental health integration will be advanced when the goal of mental health includes effective schooling and the goal of effective schools includes the healthy functioning of students. To build a solid foundation for this reciprocal agenda, especially within the zeitgeist of recent educational reforms, a change in the fundamental framework within which school mental health is conceptualized is needed. This change involves acknowledging a new set of priorities, which include: the use of naturalistic resources within schools to implement and sustain effective supports for students’ learning and emotional/behavioral health; inclusion of integrated models to enhance learning and promote health; attention to improving outcomes for all students, including those with serious emotional/behavioral needs; and strengthening the active involvement of parents. A strong research agenda to support these new priorities is essential.

Cultural phenomena and the research enterprise: toward a culturally anchored methodology.

Highlights the points at which culture intersects major phases of the research enterprise — problem formulation, population definition, concept and measurement development, research design, methodology, and data analysis — and influences and constrains what researchers deem worthy of investigation and how they interpret what they observe. These ethnocentric biases inhibit the development of a knowledge base for understanding diverse cultural communities. At each step of the research process, the need to carefully examine and expose the underlying cultural assumptions and to generate and develop alternative choices is emphasized. Guidelines are provided to encourage researchers to be aware of and deliberately make choices toward the development of a culturally anchored methodology that balances the demands for rigor and sensitivity.

The impact of the transition to high school on the self-system and perceived social context of poor urban youth'

Examined the effects of the normative school transition to senior high school (n=330) on the self-system and perceived school and peer social contexts of poor, black (n=83), European American (n=115), Latino (n=105), and Asian American (n=27) youth in the public school systems of three Eastern urban cities. The only negative effect of the school transition on the self-system was a decline in grade point average (GPA). Concurrently, the school transition was perceived to be associated with changes in the school and peer contexts. Across the transition, students reported increased disengagement from school (i.e., increased social support and extracurricular involvement) and increased engagement with peers (i.e., decreased daily hassles and increased involvement). These changes in the school and peer microsystems, like the changes in the self-system, were also common across race/ethnicity and gender. In addition, transition-associated school changes, and in particular changes in daily academic demands/hassles and involvement in school activities, were associated with changes in the academic dimensions of the self-system (i.e., academic efficacy expectations and GPA). Results and implications for preventive intervention are discussed within a developmental mismatch framework.

Racial/Ethnic Identity, Congruence with the Social Context, and the Transition to High School.

The transition to high school may serve as a race/ethnicity consciousness-raising experience that stimulates the development of one’s racial/ethnic identity depending on newcomers’ racial/ethnic congruence with the student body and staff, as well as their perceived social transactions with the new school. The nature of this development was tested within samples of poor, urban, Black, White, and Latino students (n = 144). Racial/ethnic identity (group-esteem and exploration) and perceived transactions with school (academic hassles, participation, and social support) were assessed at the end of both the year prior to the transition and the transition year. The results suggested that changes over the transition to senior high school served as a race/ethnicity consciousness-raising experience for both Black and European American students but in dramatically different ways.

Structural and experiential neighborhood contexts, developmental stage, and antisocial behavior among urban adolescents in poverty

This study explored the effects of structural and experiential neighborhood factors and developmental stage on antisocial behavior, among a sample of poor urban adolescents in New York City. Conceptually and empirically distinct profiles of neighborhood experience were derived from the data, based on measures of perceived neighborhood cohesion, poverty-related hassles, and involvement in neighborhood organizations and activities. Both the profiles of neighborhood experience and a measure of census-tract-level neighborhood hazard (poverty and violence) showed relationships to antisocial behavior. Contrary to expectation, higher levels of antisocial behavior were reported among adolescents residing in moderate-structural-risk neighborhoods than those in high-structural-risk neighborhoods. This effect held only for teens in middle (not early) adolescence and was stronger for teens perceiving their neighborhoods as hassling than for those who did not. Implications for future research and preventive intervention are discussed.

Redefining social problems

Framing The Issues.- Framing The Issues.- Frameworks for Redefining Social Problems.- The Nature of Social Problem Solving in Social Action.- Small Wins.- Making Sense of Injustice.- Women as a Social Problem.- Rethinking Demographic Deviance.- Defining Black Families.- Positive Marginality.- Debunking the Myth of Loneliness in Late Life.- Rethinking Systems for Action.- In Praise of Paradox.- Child Custody Determination.- Crime as Stress.- Examining Criminal Justice Interventions.- Different Ways of Thinking about Burnout.- Alternative Research Agendas.- Justice, Values, and Social Science.- Court-Ordered School Desegregation.- Indirect Effects of Desegregation.- Reappraisal of Ethnic Minority Issues.

Growing up the hard way: Pathways of urban adolescents

Presented a description and initial findings from the Adolescent Pathways Project (APP). There is a dearth of developmentally and ecologically anchored knowledge concerning adolescents, particularly poor and ethnically diverse urban adolescents, other than that they are at greater risk for behavioral, emotional, and educational problems. As a result, our ability to develop and implement grounded prevention programs is severely limited. The APP was intended to fill this knowledge gap. Using an accelerated longitudinal design, the APP examines the developmental trajectories of an ethnically diverse sample of 1,333 black, Latino, and white youth from inner-city public schools in Baltimore, Washington, DC, and New York. It involves four interrelated studies: Youth, Parent, School, and Neighborhood. The projects major aim is to identify the critical psychological, developmental, and ecological factors that facilitate positive as well as negative outcomes. This initial description of the APP presents the overarching ecological-developmental framework and guiding questions, as well as initial findings central to the tenets of community psychology.