Abstract Objectives The police killing of George Floyd on May 25, 2020, had widespread effects on American adults, and especially Black adults. Here, we investigate to what extent daily well-being of adolescents shifted systematically following the killing and assess heterogeneity at the intersection of gender and race. Methods We use a comparative interrupted time series design comparing within-person trends in daily fear, anger, emotional distress, and unsafety reported by a national sample of adolescents participating in a 15-day daily diary study Wave that intersected the murder (May 18-June 1, 2020; Black n = 224, White n = 153) to those of adolescents participating in ten other two-week-long daily diary Waves that did not intersect the murder (Black n = 576, White n = 410). The identifying assumption is that absent the killing, within-person slopes for given outcomes immediately following the killing would have resembled the average of respective slopes from the benchmark Waves. Results In the days following May 25, 2020, Black males experienced elevated fear and distress. Black females experienced elevated fear, anger, and unsafety. White females experienced elevated daily distress. There is more modest evidence of increases in daily unsafety among Black males. White males experienced minimal changes in daily well-being. Conclusions Daily well-being worsened in the short term especially among Black adolescents following the police killing of George Floyd. Moving beyond the dominant focus on direct and vicarious exposure to police violence, these results suggest that high-profile incidents of police violence can harm adolescents' well-being even when they are not proximate to these incidents.

Increased attention is being placed on the importance of ethnic-racial socialization in children of color's academic outcomes. Synthesizing research on the effects of parental ethnic-racial socialization, this meta-analysis of 37 studies reveals that overall the relation between ethnic-racial socialization and academic outcomes was positive, though the strength varied by the specific academic outcome under consideration, dimension of ethnic-racial socialization utilized, developmental age of the child receiving the socialization, and racial/ethnic group implementing the socialization. Ethnic-racial socialization was positively related to academic performance, motivation, and engagement, with motivation being the strongest outcome. Most dimensions of ethnic-racial socialization were positively related to academic outcomes, except for promotion of mistrust. In addition, the link between ethnic-racial socialization and academic outcomes was strongest for middle school and college students, and when looking across ethnic-racial groups, this link was strongest for African American youth. The results suggest that different dimensions of ethnic-racial socialization have distinct relationships with diverse academic outcomes and that the effects of ethnic-racial socialization vary by both youth developmental levels and racial/ethnic groups.

Using a robust moderated mediation approach with a socioeconomically diverse sample of 1,532 adolescents(M age = 14.61 years; 51% female; 68% White, 28% Black; 48% economically disadvantaged), this study tested whether growth mindset and behavioral engagement mediated the link between classroom quality and math and science achievement and whether effects varied by race or socioeconomic status. Student engagement, but not mindset, significantly mediated the association in both subjects. Mediation effects varied by race in math, with weaker effects for Black students, but did not differ by socioeconomic status. Findings underscore engagement, rather than mindset, as the primary mechanism linking classroom quality to academic achievement, highlighting the need for subject-specific and equity-focused strategies to support all learners.

Teachers' hand movements shape how children learn mathematics, but not all movements are equally effective. Gesture-based instruction on problems like 4+2+5=__+5—where a teacher forms a V-shaped hand under the 4 and 2 and points to the blank (“grouping strategy”)—promotes learning more than action-based instruction, where the teacher manipulates magnetic numbers to mimic the gestures. How do gestures facilitate learning? We tested 8- to 10-year-old children (N = 76) using fNIRS to measure neural activity as they watched gesture-based or action-based videotaped lessons. Gesture-based instruction elicited greater intersubject neural synchrony in the motor cortex and angular gyrus, a region implicated in arithmetic processing. Critically, synchrony in the right angular gyrus during gesture instruction predicted learning gains, whereas synchrony during action-based instruction did not. Our findings indicate that gestures foster shared representations in brain regions supporting arithmetic reasoning, and highlight fNIRS as a powerful tool for capturing how learning unfolds in children.

Given math -related fields are still highly racialized and gendered (NCSES, 2021), this study assessed: 1) whether there were racial differences in adolescents' perceived math cost alongside expectancies and values and 2) the extent to which perceived math cost alongside expectancies and values explained yearly changes in achievement differences by race and gender. This study assessed 2,338 Black (39.4 %) and White (60.6 %) adolescents, roughly half girls (47.8 %), in the 6th to 12th grades (M = 14.71 years old, SD = 1.93, 61.7 % qualifying for free or reduced priced lunch). The results indicated that Black adolescents perceived higher costs to learning math than their White peers but value math in similar ways. Perceived math cost was the only motivational belief to explain achievement differences between Black and White girls but not boys after adjusting for socioeconomic status and grade level. In contrast, perceptions of ability beliefs explained achievement differences between Black boys and girls. These findings point to the importance of employing intersectional approaches to understand the relationship between math motivation and achievement.

Racial stereotypes are salient to Black adolescents and to the academic domain of mathematics; however, few studies have examined the socio-cognitive mechanisms through which racial stereotypes impact math achievement. This 2-year longitudinal study (N = 790 Grade 6, 8, and 10 students during Year 1; 50.7% girls and 49.3% boys) investigated (a) the extent to which the endorsement of positively and negatively biased racial stereotypes predicted Black adolescents' math performance through their cognitive engagement and ability mindset and (b) whether gender and ethnic-racial identity moderated these links. Results suggested that endorsement of negatively biased stereotypes was associated with diminished cognitive engagement and lower math scores across 2 years (p < .05). Additionally, adolescents' ethnic-racial identity commitment moderated the negative links between stereotype endorsement and math cognitive engagement in Year 2 (p < .05). When considering the mediating role of math ability mindsets, the endorsement of both positively and negatively biased racial stereotypes operated on math performance via its links to stronger fixed ability mindset beliefs in both years (p < .05). Gender also moderated the effects of racial stereotype endorsement on math mindset beliefs in Year 1 (p < .01). This study's findings advance the field's understanding of the psychosocial mechanisms through which racial stereotypes operate, thus enabling educators to develop tailored practices that facilitate equitable access to math learning opportunities.

In spring 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic thrust nearly 56 million students in the United States into remote education. By fall 2020, states' and school districts' differing public health measures resulted in the adoption of varying COVID-adapted learning modalities (i.e., in-person, remote, and hybrid). Using daily diary data with a nationally representative sample (N = 517, M-age = 14.65 years), we investigated whether adolescents' academic engagement and connectedness to their teachers and classmates differed by COVID-adapted learning modalities. We also assessed whether adolescent connectedness mediated the link between learning modality and academic engagement. Results revealed that academic engagement and connectedness to teachers and classmates were higher for in-person learners than for students in hybrid and remote learning modalities. Moreover, students' connectedness to classmates and teachers explained the relationship between learning modality and academic engagement.

In spring 2020, U.S. schools universally transitioned to online learning due to the COVID-19 pandemic's onset, thus creating a natural experiment for examining adolescents' risk and resilience during an ongoing school crisis response. This longitudinal study used a daily-diary approach to investigate the role of social support in the link between remote learning and psychological well-being across 64 days among a national sample of adolescents (n = 744; 42% Black, 36% White, 22% Other ethnicity/race; 41% boys; 72% eligible for free/reduced-priced lunch; Mage=14.60, SDage=1.71, age-range = 12-17 years). On days when youth attended remote learning, they reported lower daily positive affect, more daily stress, and higher parent social support. There were no significant differences in the effect of remote learning on affect or stress by race or economic status. On days when youth experienced more parent support, they reported lower daily stress and negative affect and higher daily positive affect. On days when youth experienced more peer support, they reported higher daily positive affect. Overall, the study highlights the impact of pandemic-onset remote learning on adolescents' psychological well-being and emphasizes the need for future research on school crisis contingency planning to address these challenges.

Police stops often perpetuate racial disparities in academic outcomes, yet few studies have examined factors that mitigate these negative consequences. Using two longitudinal studies (Study 1: n = 483, M-age = 12.88, 53% males; Study 2: n = 131, M-age = 15.11, 34% males), this article tests whether parental and school cultural socialization reduced the negative associations between police stops and youth's school engagement. Results showed that youth with police encounters reported lower school engagement. Parental cultural socialization conferred protection in one study, while school cultural socialization was a protective factor in both studies. The implications of this work stand to benefit those working to reduce the negative links between policing and African American youth's school engagement.