PAC 405 Module 4 Multicultural Influences on Children Example

Growing Up Black in a Changing Neighborhood: Multicultural Influences on a Twelve-Year-Old and How Helping Should Respond

Student Name

Psychology and Addiction Studies Program, Aspen University

PAC 405: Child Psychology

Instructor Name

Month Day, Year

Growing Up Black in a Changing Neighborhood: Multicultural Influences on a Twelve-Year-Old and How Helping Should Respond

Jaylen, twelve, lives with his mother and grandmother in a historically Black neighborhood in Tampa that is changing quickly. In the past five years, rising rents have pushed out several families he grew up with, new apartment buildings have replaced corner stores and the neighborhood park now has a security guard who, Jaylen says, watches Black kids more closely. His grandmother has attended the same church for forty years, and the family's Sunday gatherings there are the center of their week. His mother has talked with him about how to act if police stop him. This paper examines the multicultural influences on his development and how Bayview, the counseling agency created for this course, should respond. Jaylen and his family are composites; the research is real.

An Integrative Model

Garcia Coll et al. (1996) argued that research on minority children had often compared them with white children and treated differences as deficits, overlooking the conditions that shape their lives. They proposed an integrative model of developmental competencies in minority children. In the model, social position, including race, ethnicity, social class and gender, exposes children and families to racism, prejudice and discrimination. These lead to residential, economic and social segregation, which shapes the environments children experience: schools, neighborhoods and health care that may promote or inhibit development. Families respond by developing adaptive cultures, drawing on traditions, history and current demands, and family and child characteristics interact with all these factors to shape children's competencies.

The model places Jaylen's experiences, such as the security guard's scrutiny and the displacement of his neighbors, inside the analysis rather than outside it. It also places his family's church and history in their proper role, as part of an adaptive culture that supports him.

Racial Socialization

Hughes et al. (2006) reviewed research on how parents communicate with children about race and ethnicity. They described four broad dimensions. Cultural socialization teaches children about their heritage and history and promotes pride. Preparation for bias prepares children to recognize and cope with discrimination. Promotion of mistrust encourages wariness of other groups. Egalitarianism emphasizes individual qualities and equality across groups. Cultural socialization was consistently associated with positive outcomes, such as stronger ethnic identity and self-esteem. Preparation for bias showed more mixed associations, often positive when combined with cultural socialization and delivered in a supportive way, while promotion of mistrust was associated with poorer outcomes.

Jaylen's family practices both cultural socialization, through church and his grandmother's stories of the civil rights era in Tampa, and preparation for bias, through his mother's talk about the police.

Treatment Evidence for Minority Youth

Huey and Polo (2008) reviewed research on evidence-based psychosocial treatments for ethnic minority youth. They found that few treatments met the strictest criteria specifically for minority youth, largely because of limited research, but many treatments were probably efficacious, and standard evidence-based treatments generally worked as well for minority youth as for white youth. Evidence on whether culturally adapted treatments outperformed standard ones was mixed. The authors concluded that clinicians should use evidence-based treatments with minority youth and attend to cultural factors that might affect engagement, rather than withholding effective treatment or assuming that entirely different approaches were needed.

Influences in Jaylen's Life

The Neighborhood as a Developmental Context

Garcia Coll and colleagues' model directs attention to the environments that shape development, and Jaylen's neighborhood is changing in ways that affect him directly. Friends he grew up with have moved away as rents rose. The park, once a place where older men from the neighborhood watched over the basketball courts, now has a guard who asks Black teenagers what they are doing there. The corner store where his grandmother knew the owner has become a coffee shop he does not feel welcome in. These changes narrow the places where Jaylen feels he belongs and the adults who know him, at exactly the age when belonging matters most. His cousins' gatherings, where drinking happens, may be one of the few places where he feels fully at home.

Culturally Responsive Helping

Several practices follow. First, the counselor will raise race and culture openly, asking Jaylen and his family how they see these shaping his life, rather than waiting for them to bring it up. Second, Bayview will use evidence-based methods, consistent with Huey and Polo's conclusion, while adapting examples, such as using basketball and church situations in role-plays. Third, with the family's consent, the counselor will connect with the church's youth pastor, who knows Jaylen and can reinforce the plan. Fourth, the counselor will advocate with the school to ensure that the vape incident is met with support rather than escalating discipline. Fifth, the counselor, who is white, will reflect on how her background may affect her work with the family and seek consultation when needed.

Conclusion

Jaylen grows up in a neighborhood shaped by race and change, in a family that draws strength from its church and history. Garcia Coll and colleagues show how social position and discrimination shape children's environments, Hughes and colleagues show how families teach children about race and Huey and Polo show that evidence-based treatments work for minority youth. Helping that brings these influences into the open, draws on the family's strengths and watches for bias in his school serves Jaylen better than help that ignores them.

References

Garcia Coll, C., Lamberty, G., Jenkins, R., McAdoo, H. P., Crnic, K., Wasik, B. H., & Vázquez García, H. (1996). An integrative model for the study of developmental competencies in minority children. Child Development, 67(5), 1891-1914. https://doi.org/10.2307/1131600

Huey, S. J., Jr., & Polo, A. J. (2008). Evidence-based psychosocial treatments for ethnic minority youth. Journal of Clinical Child & Adolescent Psychology, 37(1), 262-301. https://doi.org/10.1080/15374410701820174

Hughes, D., Rodriguez, J., Smith, E. P., Johnson, D. J., Stevenson, H. C., & Spicer, P. (2006). Parents' ethnic-racial socialization practices: A review of research and directions for future study. Developmental Psychology, 42(5), 747-770. https://doi.org/10.1037/0012-1649.42.5.747