The Black Female Adolescent: A Review of the Educational, Career and Psychological Literature

Abstract

This article presents a basic overview of the literature on the educational, career, and psychological development of black female adolescents. Adolescence is defined primarily in terms of individuals' attempts to deal effectively with life developmental tasks. As such, adolescence is viewed as that broad period covering the ages of 12 to 2 1 . Emphasis is placed, however, on the early and midstages of adolescent development. Comparisons and contrasts are made regarding the development of black female, black male, white male, and white female adolescents.Generally speaking, the black female adolescent has been underrepresented in educational, psychological, and career literature. Consequently, much of what we know about young black females consists of bits and pieces of fragmented knowledge. More attention has usually been placed on studying black males, white female adolescents, or black and white women. For instance, Psychological Abstracts for 1977 cited only fourteen sources relating to black female adolescents. A similar ERIC search for approximately the same time period yielded fifteen references pertaining to black female adolescents and college women. Only a few of these sources were, however, articles which related to the career development of members of this racial and age group. As Lightfoot (1976) has stated: "Young black girls are an ignored and invisible population" (p. 239).This situation may be attributed to a number of factors. Compared to their male counterparts, black female adolescents have a tendency to exhibit fewer behavioral difficulties (Pettigrew, 1964). An analogous

Get real!: Cultural relevance and resistance to the mediated feminine ideal

“…These results have been supported by later studies, which have found that African American girls rate their overall attractiveness much higher than White girls (Parker, Nichter, Nichter, & Vuckovic, 1995). Smith (1982) has noted, ". .…”

“…Because of researchers' focus on White youth, the unique adolescent experience of African American girls has seldom been addressed (Smith, 1982). "The net result has been .…”

African American and European American Mothers' Beliefs About Negative Emotions and Emotion Socialization Practices

“…African American mothers report that behavioral control characterized by child obedience and compliance is an important skill for their children to have to interact successfully with the majority culture (Kelley, Power, & Wimbush, 1992). Some authors have suggested that this “surrendered” orientation is particularly endorsed among mothers of African American boys (Smith, 1982). In fact, African American boys are more likely to be punished for misbehavior at school than girls or boys of other ethnicities (Gregory, 1997), are viewed as more threatening (Stevenson, Herrero-Taylor, Cameron, & Davis, 2002), and report more discrimination (Fischer & Shaw, 1999).…”

“…We also examined the role of child gender in light of previous research on the particularly strict consequences for African American boys’ noncompliance (Gregory, 1997; Smith, 1982). Finally, we were informed by the cultural-ecological perspective to move beyond simply comparing ethnicities to understand similarities and differences.…”

“…To do this, we tested a mediation model in which ethnic differences in mothers’ emotion socialization practices were expected to be explained by ethnic differences in mothers’ beliefs about the appropriateness and consequences of children’s display of negative emotions. We also explored the possibility that this mediation pathway differed for African American mothers of boys compared to other mothers considering the negative experiences and harsh consequences that African American boys disproportionately face for displaying negative emotions compared to other children (Fischer & Shaw, 1999; Gregory, 1997; Smith, 1982). Thus, we also tested a mediated moderation model where differences in mothers’ emotion socialization practices related to their child’s ethnicity and gender were explained by differences in mothers’ beliefs about children’s display of negative emotions.…”