Racial Identity as a Resilience Factor for African American Students

社会、行为和经济科学司提供博士后研究奖学金，为最近的博士毕业生提供获得额外培训的机会，在知名科学家的赞助下获得研究经验，并扩大他们在本科和研究生训练之外的科学视野。博士后奖学金的进一步设计是为了帮助新科学家指导他们跨越传统学科线的研究工作，并利用他们自己独特的研究资源、地点和设施，包括在国外的研究地点。本博士后奖学金资助一位研究种族认同对非裔美国青少年和大学生影响的年轻学者的培训和研究。当这些人群在日常生活中遭受种族歧视时，他们往往在学业和心理上都很脆弱。这个项目探讨了他们如何成功地应对与种族有关的负面经历，并在学业和心理上保持弹性。该研究员隶属于黑人青年研究中心（CSBYC），在那里她有机会指导有色人种的高中生和大学生，他们隶属于CSBYC，并为STEM领域的职业发展技能。具体来说，她担任非裔美国高中生的导师，这些学生从事独立项目，这是该中心本科生研究机会计划的一部分。本项目有助于理解非裔美国青少年和大学生种族歧视经历的理论和研究，以及他们的种族认同信仰与歧视经历相互作用的方式，从而影响学术参与和心理健康。这项工作在几个方面有助于更大的研究文献。例如，它将检查非裔美国大学生是否有负面的种族相关经历，而这些经历没有被用于评估种族歧视的传统定量措施所捕捉到。本研究考察了大学生在经历种族歧视后，如何感知他们的种族认同信念对他们的学术投入、动机和心理健康的影响。此外，结合使用每日日记方法收集的数据信息，可以增加传统上在非裔美国青少年中研究歧视，种族身份和结果之间关系的方法的复杂性。这个项目可能对整个社会产生非常广泛的影响，尤其是STEM教育。

The Directorate of Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences offers postdoctoral research fellowships to provide opportunities for recent doctoral graduates to obtain additional training, to gain research experience under the sponsorship of established scientists, and to broaden their scientific horizons beyond their undergraduate and graduate training. Postdoctoral fellowships are further designed to assist new scientists to direct their research efforts across traditional disciplinary lines and to avail themselves of unique research resources, sites, and facilities, including at foreign locations. This postdoctoral fellowship award supports the training and research of a young scholar who studies the effects of racial identity in African American adolescents and college students. These populations are often academically and psychologically vulnerable when they experience racial discrimination in their daily contexts. This project explore the ways in which they cope successfully with negative race-related experiences and remain resilient academically and psychologically. The Fellow is affiliated with the Center for the Study of Black Youth in Context (CSBYC) where she has the opportunity to mentor high school and college students of color who are affiliated with the CSBYC and developing skills for careers in STEM fields. Specifically, she serves as a mentor to African American high school students who work on independent projects as part of the center's Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program.This project contributes to the theory and research seeking to understand African American adolescents' and college students' racial discrimination experiences and the ways their racial identity beliefs interact with discrimination experiences to influence academic engagement and psychological health. This work contributes to the larger research literature in several ways. For instance, it will examine whether there are negative race-related experiences that African American college students experience that are not captured in traditional quantitative measures used to assess racial discrimination. This work examines the ways college students perceive their racial identity beliefs as influencing their academic engagement and motivation and psychological well-being after they have experienced racial discrimination. Additionally, the incorporation of information from data collected using a daily diary method can add complexity in the ways in which relations between discrimination, racial identity, and outcomes have traditionally been studied among African American adolescents. This project has potentially very high broader impacts for society in general and STEM education is particular.