Relations among White (non‐Latinx) children's empathy‐related responding, prosocial behaviors, and racial attitudes toward White and Black peers were examined. In 2017, 190 (54% boys) White 5‐ to 9‐year‐old children (M = 7.09 years, SD = 0.94) watched a series of videos that depicted social rejection of either a White or Black child. Empathy‐related responses, prosocial behaviors, and racial attitudes were measured using multiple methods. Results showed that younger children showed less facial concern toward Black than White peers and greater increases with age in concern and prosocial behaviors (sharing a desirable prize) for Black, compared to White, targets. Children's facial anger increased with age for White but not Black targets. The findings can extend our understanding children's anti‐racism development.

Racial discrimination remains a mechanism by which ethnic–racial minorities are restricted from power. We examined whether racial discrimination restricts ethnic–racial minority access to high‐achieving STEM schools. We conducted an audit correspondence experiment to investigate racial discrimination in guidance counselor responsiveness to 976 emails from fictitious Asian, Black, Latina, and White mothers inquiring about school enrollment. Moderation analyses revealed that guidance counselors restricted access from Asian mothers at schools characterized as rural, lower socioeconomic status, and higher STEM prestige—evidence of gatekeeping points to the restriction of Asian students from advanced STEM opportunities. Results are situated within educational audit experiments to objectively document how racism from multiple facets of the education system intersect to inhibit ethnic–racial minority youth.

The present study explored associations among teachers' anxiety for teaching mathematics, science, and English language arts and their students' own anxiety in each content area, and how these associations varied depending on student sex and socioeconomic status (SES). Participants included 33 fourth-grade teachers and 463 students from 14 schools in the Southwestern United States. Multiple regression models with cluster-robust standard errors were run regressing students' mid-year, self-reported content-area anxiety on teachers' self-reported content-area anxiety at the beginning of the year and controlling for students' beginning-of-year anxiety in that content area. Two interaction effects were detected whereby teachers' mathematics and science anxiety were each positively associated with the mathematics and science anxiety of their low-SES students. Findings provide additional evidence for processes of emotional transmission between teachers and students in the classroom and provide additional information about the learning contexts and student groups for whom these processes may be particularly relevant. Educational Impact and Implications StatementWe investigated associations among teachers' and students' anxiety in mathematics, science, and literacy. We found that teachers' anxiety in mathematics and science was associated with the mathematics and science anxiety of their low-SES students. Results highlight STEM content areas as contexts in which transmission of negative emotions between teachers and students may take place, as well as highlight the particular impacts these processes might have on students from underserved socioeconomic backgrounds.

Introduction: Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields are growing rapidly and understanding adolescent's interest and hope for pursuing a STEM career is essential for additional growth and opportunity collectively and individually. Hope is a cognitive-motivational construct that includes three components: hopeful future expectations (HFEs), intentional self-regulation (ISR), and connection, and is associated with academic achievement and career pursuit; it has not been examined in relation to STEM. This study fills a gap in the literature by taking a multimethod approach to understanding the association between adolescents' hope and STEM career interests. Methods: Participants were 639 middle-and high-school adolescents in the southwestern United States who quantitatively reported their hope and STEM career interests and provided qualitative descriptions of reasons for wanting to pursue a STEM career. Results: Quantitatively, HFEs significantly and positively predicted STEM career interest. Relations were examined by gender and school level. For middle-school girls, ISR significantly predicted STEM career interest, for middle-school boys and highschool girls, HFEs positively significantly predicted STEM career interest, but results of high-school boys were nonsignificant. Qualitatively, adolescents mentioned reasons aligning with HFEs and ISR as motivations for pursuing a STEM career, as well as prosocial motivations. Additionally, they discussed their interest in a STEM career as a way to pursue other goals such as financial stability. Discussion: Findings highlight the possibility of hope as a malleable motivation for STEM career pursuit. Our findings support the components of hope as a salient associate of early STEM career interest, with adolescents who have high HFEs and ISR being particularly apt to say they would like to pursue a STEM career. Our results support the active development of hope among US adolescents as a catalyst toward personal and global success.

We examined the relation of White parents’ color-blind racial attitudes (a global composite score and its subscales) and their implicit racial attitudes to their young children’s race-based sympathy toward Black and White victims. One hundred and nighty non-Hispanic White children (54% boys, Mage = 7.13 years, SD = 0.92) reported their sympathy in response to short films depicting bullying toward White or Black children. Their primary caregivers’ (mostly mothers’) color-blind racial ideology (CBRI) was assessed through a questionnaire (reflecting global color blindness, as well as denial of institutional racism, White privilege, and blatant racial issues), and their implicit racial attitudes were assessed with a computerized test. Children’s sympathy toward Black victims and their equitable sympathy (difference score toward Black vs. White victims) was predicted by parents’ color blindness, implicit racial attitudes, and their interaction. Results indicated several interaction effects, such that parents’ denial of blatant racial attitudes and global CBRI were negatively related to children’s sympathy toward Black victims and equitable sympathy toward Black versus White victims, only when the parents held implicit racial attitudes that favored White people. In addition, parents’ denial of White privilege was negatively related to children’s sympathy toward Black victims. The findings are discussed in terms of potential ways to shape children’s race-based sympathy and compassion, particularly with an eye toward ways White parents might socialize sympathy toward historically marginalized youth.