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Chapter 16 - The Social, Cultural, and Racial Context of Development

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 February 2025

By
Oscar A. Barbarin
Edited by
Frank Kessel
Frank Kessel
Affiliation:
University of New Mexico
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Summary

Oscar Barbarin has served on the faculties of the Universities of Michigan, Maryland, and North Carolina as well as Tulane University. His scholarship examines social context, ethnicity and child development, particularly the impact of racism and material hardship on socioemotional development. He has studied the development of children with life-threatening illness, urbanization in South Africa, and quality of early childhood settings. His research has centered on boys of color and the identified auspicious conditions that promote their mental health, social competence and emotional resilience. These conditions include (a) systems of caring, (b) structures supporting their self-regulation of behavior and emotions, and (c) interpretive frameworks by which affirming familial relations, culture and spiritual values provide boys of color a sense of connection, purpose, and an understanding of their place in the world. He has proposed that paradoxical attributions are a key cognitive strategy in maintaining emotional balance by affirming personal agency.

Keywords

social contextracismearly childhoodmental healthsocial competenceself-regulationearly childhood educationmeaningcaringcontrolchildhood illnessattributionsBlack boys
Type
Chapter
Information
Pillars of Developmental Psychology
Recollections and Reflections
 , pp. 170 - 182
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2025

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References

Suggested Reading

Barbarin, O. A. (2024). Emotional Resilience of Black Boys and Youth: Building Social Assets to Overcome Racism and Adversity. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Barbarin, O. A., McBride-Murry, V., Tolan, P., & Graham, S. (2016). Development of boys and young men of color: Implications of developmental science for My Brother’s Keeper initiative. Social Policy Report, 29(3), 1–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barbarin, O. A. & Richter, L. M. (2001). Mandela’s Children: Growing Up in Post-Apartheid South Africa. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Barbarin, O. A. & Wasik, B. (Eds.). (2009). Handbook of Child Development and Early Education: Research to Practice. New York: Guilford Press.Google Scholar
Chesler, M. & Barbarin, O. A. (1987). Childhood Cancer and the Family: Meeting the Challenge of Stress and Social Support. New York: Brunner.Google Scholar
Stern, J. A., Barbarin, O. A., & Cassidy, J. (2022). Working toward anti-racist perspectives in attachment theory, research, and practice. Attachment and Human Development, 24(3), 92–422. https://doi.org.10.1080/14616734.2021.1976933.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed

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