Highlights• We investigate institutional and cultural racial discrimination and Black youth activism orientation.• Racial identity that emphasizes the importance of Blackness relates to low-risk activism orientation.• Nationalist racial ideology promotes high-and low-risk Black community activism orientation.• Relationship between racial discrimination and activism orientation varies by public regard.• Teens and young adults need opportunities to process racism to support low-and high-risk activism.Abstract The current study examines how experiences of institutional and cultural racial discrimination relate to orientations toward activism in the Black community among Black adolescents and emerging adults. Furthermore, we investigate the role of racial identity (centrality, public regard, nationalism) as moderators of those relations. In a national sample of 888 Black adolescents and emerging adults, we found that experiences of cultural racial discrimination, racial centrality, and nationalism ideology were related to a greater orientation toward low-risk Black community activism. For high-risk activism, nationalism was associated with a greater likelihood to participate in future social action in the Black community. The relation between experiences of institutional racial discrimination and high-risk activism orientation was moderated by public regard. For Black adolescents and emerging adults who believe others view Black people negatively, more experiences of institutional racial discrimination were related to a greater high-risk activism orientation. Findings highlight the importance of investigating racial discrimination as a multidimensional construct that extends beyond individual interactions and microaggressions. Furthermore, these findings underscore how phenomenological variation in experiences of racial discrimination and racial identity differentially influence adolescent and emerging adult orientations toward social action in and for the Black community.

This chapter delves into how financial distress is associated with how students make sense of the “opportunity” to attend college. Many of the financially distressed students believed they had to attend college to secure their economic futures but doubted that obtaining their degree would ensure financial stability. Their experiences illustrate the large role that one's relative financial position plays in identity and sense of belonging on campus. The chapter asserts that counterspaces for economically marginalized students can help to alleviate this identity challenge. Counterspaces that bring students together around financial issues can reduce the negative identity effects of financial distress by changing their narrative from an individual to a structural framing.