This month, we’re featuring the African American Youth Development Lab (Faculty Advisor Shauna M. Cooper). The overall aims of the AAYD lab are to explore the ways in which families, schools, and communities influence positive youth development among African American youth (educational-related outcomes; psychological adjustment; health behaviors). Current graduate students in the lab are Charity Brown (3rd year School; Greensboro, NC), Isha Metzger (3rd year Clinical-Community; Atlanta, GA), Heather Eaddy (4th year Clinical-Community; Lake City, SC), and Melanie Avery (4th year Clinical-Community; Prince George’s County, MD).
Graduate students keep very busy supervising undergraduate research volunteers, preparing presentations and publications, transcribing and coding qualitative research data and with recruitment for several ongoing research projects. Currently, the lab is recruiting African American fathers with children between the ages of 10-17 for participation in the Intergenerational Influences, Co-parenting, and African American Males’ Parenting Practices: The Mediating Role of Fatherhood Ideologies, a mixed-method research project focusing on factors associated with African American fathers’ parenting ideologies as well as how these beliefs and attitudes are associated with parental involvement. The lab is also actively recruiting fathers and their adolescent daughters for participation in the Dads Active in Daughters Developing Successfully (D.A.D.D.S): Contributions to the Psychological and School Adjustment of African American Girls project. Fathers in both studies are compensated for completing a survey and participating in a father focus group (contact browncL9@email.sc.edu for more information about these projects).
Using university and community-based samples, the AAYD is also exploring African American youths’ views about adult responsibilities, including familial responsibilities, perceived gender roles, beliefs about community involvement and career-related/educational goals in the Psychological Well-Being among African American Emerging Adults: Risk and Protective Factors project. They are recruiting 300 African American young adults for participation in this investigation (see web site for more information).
The AAYD Lab graduate students also recently presented their work at the Biennial Meeting for the Society for Research in Child Development (SRCD) in Montreal Canada. Their poster symposium was entitled: “The "Gendered" Context of Racial Socialization in African American Families: The Discussion Continues.
Charity and Isha recently co-authored two publications, with their advisor, appearing in Sex Roles and the Journal for the Health Care for the Poor and Underserved. Several other publications co-authored by the AAYD lab graduate students are currently under review.
Charity and Isha will be receiving training in qualitative data analysis at the Odum Institute for Research in Social Science, affiliated with the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. This training will equip them to design, conduct, and critique mixed method research and to interface with qualitative data analysis software such as NVivo.
To learn more about the AAYD lab's work or current projects, visit their web site, "like" them on Facebook, or e-mail the lab.
