S.H.I.E.L.D. Projects
Our currently funded program of research explores emotional development and cultural experiences of emotion and racial socialization, ethnic-racial identity development, and ethnic-racial discrimination (individual and structural).
Funded Research Projects (Dr. Lozada as Primary Investigator)
Understanding Emotion Regulatory Flexibility: The Family Expression and Emotional Life Study (FEELS)
Funded by the National Science Foundation (#2046607)
African American youth’s cultural and racial experiences may shape the ways that they use cues in their social environments to guide their emotion expression and management (a concept called emotion regulatory flexibility or ERF) — especially in light of stereotypes about African American emotions being perceived as dangerous or threatening. The purpose of this study is to examine what ERF looks like among African American youth (through self-report and biomarker measurement) and how their parents’ socialization of race and emotion might contribute to adolescents’ ERF.
Youth Voices: A Youth Participatory Action Research Study for Positive Youth Development
Funded by the Centers for Disease Control (CE21-005): The CDC National Centers of Excellence in Youth Violence Prevention (YVPCs)
Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR) engages young people in investigating their communities and striving toward community action. The Youth Voices program engages 9th - 12th grade students in a leadership program that uses photovoice to explore issues related to access to positive youth development opportunities in their communities. Youth Voices incorporates socioemotional learning with critical consciousness — providing youth with critical socioemotional skills to identify and cope with emotions that emerge in the awareness and experience of structural inequality.
Merging Developmental and Educational Perspectives on Ethnic-Racial Identity and Ethnic-Racial Socialization to Foster Culturally Responsive Education
Funded by Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) Breakthroughs Fund
Culturally responsive education aims to reduce disparities in educational opportunities and outcomes for students from historically marginalized communities through leveraging their cultural characteristics as assets for learning. The goals of this project are to (1) create an integrative conceptual framework that centers ethnic-racial identity and ethnic-racial socialization processes within culturally responsive teaching which will be reviewed by Black and Latinx students and their parents and teachers and (2) engage Black and Latinx students, caregivers, and educators in translating the integrative framework into a professional development curriculum for teachers.
Advisory Team Meeting June 2023
Mentored Projects (Dr. Lozada as Supervising Primary Investigator)
A Physiological Approach to Examining the Role of Racial Coping on Mental Health among Black Adolescents
Funded by National Institute of Minority Health Disparities (NIMHD). National Institutes of Health (NIH). F31 Awarded to Rachel Davis
To address the pervasive and ubiquitous public health concern of the presence of racial stress in the lives of Black adolescents and their subsequent adjustment, the overarching goal of this study is to utilize a multi-method approach to (1) understand the nature of racial coping among Black adolescents, (2) identify cultural parenting processes that predicts racial coping among Black adolescents, and (3) examine the attenuating effects of racial coping on the association between racial discrimination and mental health (i.e., symptoms of depression, anxiety, and stress) among Black adolescents.
A Deeper Lens: A Mixed-Method Investigation of Participatory Action Research Interventions for Youth Violence Prevention
Funded by Center for Disease Control (CDC) NCIPC Recipient-Initiated Diversity Supplement Awarded to Kiara Brown
Youth violence disproportionately affects urban communities with elevated rates of economic disadvantages — particularly African American youth — which signals the necessity of engaging in youth prevention efforts that considers structural racism while centering community voice. The goal of this project is to examine participant perspectives of action research conducted by VCU in Richmond, VA across three main areas (long-lasting impact, self empowerment, and satisfaction) across qualitative and quantitative measures in a triangulation mixed methods design.
Online Racism and Mental Health Symptomatology among Black Adolescents: A Longitudinal Examination
National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). National Institutes of Health (NIH). F31 Awarded to Stephen Gibson
Online racism (e.g., racism via the media and online platforms) is increasingly becoming a public health concern, with recent studies indicating that almost 50% of Black individuals have experienced at least one online racial discriminatory act during adolescence, and the most common discriminatory act being racist images or videos. The goal of this study is to examine the long-term effects of online racism exposure on depression and PTSD symptoms, investigating the extent to which subgroups of Black adolescents differ in online racism exposure, and the extent to which cultural processes of racial protection and racial pride serve as protective factors in the face of online racism exposure.
Rachel Davis, M.S.
Kiara Brown, B.S.
Stephen Gibson, M.S.