Margaret Beale Spencer is an American psychologist whose work centers on the effects of ethnicity, gender, and race on youth and adolescent development. She currently serves as the Marshall Field IV Professor of Urban Education in the Department of Comparative Human Development at the University of Chicago. [1] Dr. Spencer's career spans more than 30 years and consists of over 115 published articles and chapters, stemming from work funded by over two-dozen foundations and federal agencies. [2]
Margaret Beale Spencer completed a five-year Bachelor of Science (BS) in pharmacy at Temple University's School of Pharmacy, and completed post-degree clinical requirements for certification and pharmacy licensure. [3] She received her master's degree from the University of Kansas, where she worked with developmental psychologist Frances Degen Horowitz. [3] [4] She went on to receive her PhD in Child and Developmental Psychology from the University of Chicago in 1976. [4] [5]
She taught in both the psychology and education departments at Emory University before joining the faculty at the University of Pennsylvania, where she directed the W. E. B. Du Bois Collective Research Institute as well as the Center for Health Achievement Neighborhood Growth and Ethnic Studies (CHANGES). [2] [4]
Since 2009, she has served as the Marshall Field IV Professor of Urban Education in the Department of Comparative Human Development at the University of Chicago. [5]
Spencer master's thesis, titled "Effects of Systematic Social and Token Reinforcement on the Modification of Racial and Color Concept Attitudes in Black and in White Preschool Children," was inspired by the doll studies of Kenneth and Mamie Clark and investigated whether children's racial beliefs and preferences could be modified by incentives. [4]
The study included 24 Black and 24 White children between the ages of 3–5, who all attended a Head Start program serving lower-class families. In the control condition, children were asked to choose between drawings of Black or White animals and children; this baseline found that the children in the study showed a 70% – 80% bias towards the White stimuli. In the experimental condition, a Black or White mechanized puppet taught the children to choose the Black stimuli by rewarding them with marbles; this intervention reduced bias towards the White stimulus to only 40%. [8]
Spencer concluded that the children had learned implicit biases during their childhood, but that the initial preference towards White stimulus could be reversed with incentives, suggesting that initial bias was more related to learned attitudes than an internalized self-hatred as suggested by the Clarks. [4]
Spencer's PhD dissertation was a continuation of her master's degree work looking at racial preferences among children, but with a focus on the confidence and self-esteem of Black children that exhibited biases towards White stimuli. [4]
Her dissertation studied 130 Black children from six preschools in the South Side of Chicago. This work determined that while the children showed significant bias against the color black and Black people, and favored the color white and White people, these attitudes were not internalized by the children, allowing them to maintain healthy self-esteem despite implicit anti-Black attitudes. [4]
Built off of Urie Bronfenbrenner's Ecological Systems Theory, Spencer developed the Phenomenological Variant of Ecological Systems (PVEST) Theory as a framework to examine strength and resiliency, especially during the process of identity formation in adolescents. [9] [10] PVEST addresses the social, historical, and cultural context in which youths develop, and as well as the perceptions and self-appraisals that individuals use to form their identity. [9]
The PVEST Theory breaks identity formation into the following five components: [11]
The APA Task Force on Resilience and Strength in Black Children and Adolescents describes Spencer's PVEST theory as "a seminal and important contribution to the study of resilience among African American children and youth" (p. 34) for being one of the only theories taking into account the "ecological contextual circumstances unique to youths of color in the United States" (p. 23) [9]
In a 2008 publication titled "What does ‘acting White’ actually mean?," Margaret Beale Spencer and Vinay Harpalani addressed John Ogbu and Signithia Fordham's widely cited "Black students' school success: Coping with the burden of 'acting White,'" which proposed the Acting White hypothesis, the idea that African-American communities devalue academic achievement because success in school is seen as an attribute of White dominant culture. [11]
Spencer and Harpalani cite data that suggests that African-American families have just as much investment in their children's academic success, and that high-achieving African-American students have higher social status than their peers, opposite to what would be presumed under the Acting White Hypothesis. [11]
Spencer and Harpalani also found conceptual problems with Ogbu and Fordham's approach, saying:
The article concludes that Acting White is simply one of many coping response that Black youths employ and is not responsible for academic underachievement. [11]
2005: American Psychological Association's "Award for Distinguished Contributions to Psychology in the Public Interest." [12]
2006: Awarded the Fletcher Fellowship, recognizing work that furthers the broad social goals of the U.S. Supreme Court's Brown v. Board of Education decision of 1954. [5]
2007: Inaugural Fellow of American Educational Research Association. [13]
2008: Elected as Member of National Academy of Education. [14]
2011: Society for Research in Child Development's award for "Distinguished Contributions to Cultural and Contextual Factors in Child Development." [15]
2015: Northwestern University's Honorary Doctorate "Doctor of Humane Letters." [16]
2018: American Psychological Association's APA Award for Outstanding Lifetime Contributions to Psychology. [17]
2018 American Association for the Advancement of Science Fellow. [18]
2019: American Academy of Arts and Sciences Fellow. [19]
Parenting or child rearing promotes and supports the physical, emotional, social, spiritual and cognitive development of a child from infancy to adulthood. Parenting refers to the intricacies of raising a child and not exclusively for a biological relationship.
Adolescence is a transitional stage of physical and psychological development that generally occurs during the period from puberty to adulthood. Adolescence is usually associated with the teenage years, but its physical, psychological or cultural expressions may begin earlier or end later. Puberty typically begins during preadolescence, particularly in females. Physical growth and cognitive development can extend past the teens. Age provides only a rough marker of adolescence, and scholars have not agreed upon a precise definition. Some definitions start as early as 10 and end as late 30. The World Health Organization definition officially designates an adolescent as someone between the ages of 10 and 19.
Kenneth Bancroft Clark and Mamie Phipps Clark were American psychologists who as a married team conducted research among children and were active in the Civil Rights Movement. They founded the Northside Center for Child Development in Harlem and the organization Harlem Youth Opportunities Unlimited (HARYOU). Kenneth Clark was also an educator and professor at City College of New York, and first Black president of the American Psychological Association.
Stereotype threat is a situational predicament in which people are or feel themselves to be at risk of conforming to stereotypes about their social group. It is theorized to be a contributing factor to long-standing racial and gender gaps in academic performance. Since its introduction into the academic literature, stereotype threat has become one of the most widely studied topics in the field of social psychology.
In the United States, acting white is a pejorative term, usually applied to Black people, which refers to a person's perceived betrayal of their culture by assuming the social expectations of white society. It can be applied to success in education, but this view is highly debated. In 2020, 93.6% of African-Americans between 25 and 39 had a high school diploma, on par with the national average, though African-Americans have a higher tendency to drop out from college than their white peers.
Psychological resilience is the ability to cope mentally and emotionally with a crisis, or to return to pre-crisis status quickly.
Suniya S. Luthar was Founder and executive director of AC Groups nonprofit, Professor Emerita at Teachers College-Columbia University, and Co-founder Emerita at Authentic Connections Co. She had previously served on the faculty at Yale University's Department of Psychiatry and the Yale Child Study Center and as Foundation Professor of Psychology at the Arizona State University.
Melanie Killen is a developmental psychologist and Professor of Human Development and Quantitative Methodology, and Professor of Psychology (Affiliate) at the University of Maryland, and Honorary Professor of Psychology at the University of Kent, Canterbury, UK. She is supported by funding from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), and the National Science Foundation (NSF) for her research. In 2008, she was awarded Distinguished Scholar-Teacher by the Provost's office at the University of Maryland. She is the Director of the Social and Moral Development Lab at the University of Maryland.
Ethnic identity development includes the identity formation in an individual's self-categorization in, and psychological attachment to, (an) ethnic group(s). Ethnic identity is characterized as part of one's overarching self-concept and identification. It is distinct from the development of ethnic group identities.
Biracial and multiracial identity development is described as a process across the life span that is based on internal and external forces such as individual family structure, cultural knowledge, physical appearance, geographic location, peer culture, opportunities for exploration, socio-historical context, etc.
Mamie Phipps Clark was a social psychologist who, along with her husband Kenneth Clark, focused on the development of self-consciousness in black preschool children. Clark was born and raised in Hot Springs, Arkansas. Clark received her post-secondary education at Howard University, and she earned her bachelor's and master's degrees there.
Adelbert H. Jenkins is an African American clinical psychologist who is known for his humanistic approach to Black psychology at the start of the field in the early 1970s. Jenkins was also one of the 28 founding members of the National Association of Black Psychologists, along with other notable psychologists such as Robert V. Guthrie and Joseph White. He is currently an associate professor of psychology at New York University.
Kristina Reiss Olson is a psychologist and a professor at Princeton University. She is known for her research on the development of social categories, transgender youth, and variation in human gender development. Olson was recipient of the 2016 Janet Taylor Spence Award from the Association for Psychological Science for transformative early career contributions, and the 2014 SAGE Young Scholars Award. Olson received the Alan T. Waterman Award from the National Science Foundation in 2018, and was the first psychological scientist to receive this prestigious award honoring early-career scientists. Olson is a member of the 2018 cohort of MacArthur fellows.
Gene Howard Brody is an American developmental psychologist and prevention scientist and Regent's Professor at the University of Georgia and is the founder and co-director of the University of Georgia's Center for Family Research. He is known for his research on the physiological, biological, and mental health effects of poverty, community disadvantage, and racial discrimination and for the development of efficacious prevention programs for African American youth and their families.
Racial-ethnic socialization describes the developmental processes by which children acquire the behaviors, perceptions, values, and attitudes of an ethnic group, and come to see themselves and others as members of the group.
Mia A. Smith-Bynum a clinical psychologist who specializes in family science and is known for her research on mental health, parenting, family interactions, communication, and racial-ethnic socialization in ethnic minority families. Smith-Bynum is associate professor of Family Science in the School of Public Health at the University of Maryland-College Park, where she is also affiliated with the Maryland Population Research Center. She is Chair of the Black Caucus of the Society for Research in Child Development.
Brendesha Marie Tynes is an American psychologist who is a professor of Psychology and Education at the USC Rossier School of Education. Her research considers how young people engage with social media, and how this influences their socioeconomic and academic outcomes. Tynes is principal investigator on the Teen Life Online and in Schools Project, which studies race-related cyberbullying.
Diane Leslie Hughes is a developmental psychologist known for her research on racial-ethnic socialization, parent-child communication about discrimination and racism, interracial relationships, and the influence of racial ecology on people's experiences in social settings. She is Professor of Applied Psychology at the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development and co-director of the Center for Research on Culture, Development, and Education at New York University.
Riana Elyse Anderson is an American clinical and community psychologist focused on racial discrimination and black families. Anderson is an assistant professor in the Department of Health Behavior and Health Education at the University of Michigan School of Public Health. She was trained in Clinical and Community Psychology at the University of Virginia, at Yale University School of Medicine, and at the University of Pennsylvania. Riana studies how racial discrimination impacts the mental health of Black adolescents and their families. She works with therapeutic programs and community partners and shares knowledge through media, writing, and talks. She has received numerous grants, awards, and fellowships in support of her work.
Carola Suárez-Orozco is a cultural developmental psychologist, academic, and author. She is a Professor in Residence at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, and the Director of the Immigration Initiative at Harvard. She is also the co-founder of Re-Imagining Migration, a nonprofit organization.
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