Social contexts and Adolescent Development: Race/ethnicity and academic success

Please join the Falk College Department of Human Development and Family Science for a Colloquium featuring Jacquelynne S. Eccles, Ph.D. on April 30th from 12:00 pm to 1:00 pm (EST)

Dr. Eccles will discuss in a talk titled, Social contexts and Adolescent Development: Race/ethnicity and academic success, the relationship of African American identity and perceptions of racial discrimination with academic achievement/motivation and socioemotional well-being in Black adolescents in the USA. She will present findings from the Maryland Adolescent Development in Context longitudinal study of a cohort of adolescents going through high school in Maryland at the turn of the century. This is one of the only longitudinal studies of youth that assesses both racial identity and perceptions of racial discrimination, as well as motivation and well-being. The data provide strong evidence of the protective role of a strongly positive, culturally-based African American identity against the negative impacts of experiences of racial discrimination in school on all aspects of Black adolescents.

About the Speaker

Dr. Jacquelynne Eccles got her PhD in psychology UCLA, working with Bernard Weiner. She has been a faculty member in either psychology or education at Smith College, Univ. Of Michigan, Univ. Of COLORADO, Boulder, and now at the Univ. Of California, Irvine. Her research focuses on identity development, motivation, human development, and achievement. Along with Dr. Allan Wigfield, she is the originator of the Eccles et al. Situated Expectancy Value Theory of Achievement Choices. In addition, her studies have followed youth and their families from late elementary school well into adulthood using longitudinal mixed methods.