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' 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.

In the current study, we explored patterns of change in Black emerging adults’ racial identity beliefs during the transition to adulthood, assessed neighborhood racial composition effects on Black emerging adults’ racial identity beliefs, and tested the moderating effects of neighborhood racial composition on the relationship between Black emerging adults’ racial identity beliefs and depressive symptoms over time. Participants in the current study included 570 Black adolescents (52% female) who were transitioning into adulthood (senior year of high school through 5 years post-high school). We did not find average patterns of change in Black emerging adults’ racial identity beliefs over time. Further, neighborhood racial composition did not predict participants’ beginning status or growth in racial identity beliefs over time. We, however, found evidence that neighborhood racial composition may moderate the association between Black emerging adults’ racial identity beliefs and symptoms of depression over time. Findings from the current study underscore the importance of considering how the larger social context may interact with individuals’ racial identity beliefs to influence Black emerging adults’ psychological health.

African American adolescents are faced with the challenge to be successful academically, even though they may experience racial discrimination within school settings. Unfortunately, relatively little scholarship explores how African American adolescents draw on personal and cultural assets to persist and thrive in the face of discriminatory experiences. Additionally, little research has explored the buffering role of assets (e.g., racial pride, self-efficacy, and self-acceptance) on the relationship between school-based racial discriminatory experiences and the academic persistence of African American adolescents. Participants in the current study included 220 (58 % girls) socioeconomically diverse African American adolescents. Latent class analysis was utilized to identify clusters based on participants' racial pride, self-efficacy, and self-acceptance. Three cluster groups were identified. The majority of the students belonged to the average group in which adolescents reported average levels of the three study assets. Adolescents in the higher group reported higher assets relative to their peers in the study and those in the lower group reported lower strength-based assets relative to their peers. Results indicated that school-based racial discrimination was associated with lower levels of academic persistence. Additionally, adolescents in the higher assets group reported higher academic persistence in comparison to the average and low group. Our model reflected a promotive but not protective influence of adolescents' assets on their academic persistence.

This study examined various parental racial socialization messages as mediators between school-based racial discrimination and racial identity formation over 4 years for African American boys (N = 639) and African American girls (N = 711). Findings indicated that school-based racial discrimination was associated with racial identity beliefs. For African American boys, behavioral racial socialization messages mediated the relation between school-based racial discrimination and racial centrality over time. Mediation also resulted for African American girls, but for a different set of race-related messages (negative messages and racial barriers) and racial identity beliefs. The developmental significance of the findings and implications for future research are discussed.

For many Black adolescents, racial discrimination increases the risk of developing adverse psychological outcomes.