Unraveling the Complexity of Critical Consciousness, Political Efficacy, and Political Action Among Marginalized Adolescents.

This research examines the complex patterns by which distinct dimensions of critical consciousness may lead marginalized adolescents toward distinct forms of political action. Structural equation modeling was applied to nationally representative data from the Civic Education Study (2,811 ninth graders; Mage  = 14.6), first establishing the measurement invariance of constructs across samples of poor or working class African American and Latino/a adolescents. Perceptions of societal inequality and aspirational beliefs that society ought to be more equal differentially predicted expected voting, conventional political action, and social action-while controlling for civic achievement and with nuances between ethnic and racial groups. Contrary to hypotheses and extant scholarship, political efficacy did not mediate or moderate relations between critical reflection and disparate forms of political action.

School Shootings in the United States: 1997-2022.

OBJECTIVES: Gun violence in the United States is a public health crisis. In 2019, gun injury became the leading cause of death among children aged birth to 19 years. Moreover, the United States has had 57 times as many school shootings as all other major industrialized nations combined. The purpose of this study was to understand the frequency of school-related gun violence across a quarter century, considering both school shootings and school mass shootings. METHODS: We drew on 2 publicly available datasets whose data allowed us to tabulate the frequency of school shootings and school mass shootings. The databases contain complementary data that provide a longitudinal, comprehensive view of school-related gun violence over the past quarter century. RESULTS: Across the 1997-1998 to 2021-2022 school years, there were 1453 school shootings. The most recent 5 school years reflected a substantially higher number of school shootings than the prior 20 years. In contrast, US school mass shootings have not increased, although school mass shootings have become more deadly. CONCLUSIONS: School shootings have risen in frequency in the recent 25 years and are now at their highest recorded levels. School mass shootings, although not necessarily increasing in frequency, have become more deadly. This leads to detrimental outcomes for all the nation's youth, not just those who experience school-related gun violence firsthand. School-based interventions can be used to address this public health crisis, and effective approaches such as Multi-Tiered Systems of Supports and services should be used in support of students' mental health and academic and behavioral needs.

An Examination of US School Mass Shootings, 2017-2022: Findings and Implications.

Objectives: Gun violence in the USA is a pressing social and public health issue. As rates of gun violence continue to rise, deaths resulting from such violence rise as well. School shootings, in particular, are at their highest recorded levels. In this study, we examined rates of intentional firearm deaths, mass shootings, and school mass shootings in the USA using data from the past 5 years, 2017-2022, to assess trends and reappraise prior examination of this issue. Methods: Extant data regarding shooting deaths from 2017 through 2020 were obtained from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, the web-based injury statistics query and reporting system (WISQARS), and, for school shootings in particular (2017-2022), from Everytown Research & Policy. Results: The number of intentional firearm deaths and the crude death rates increased from 2017 to 2020 in all age categories; crude death rates rose from 4.47 in 2017 to 5.88 in 2020. School shootings made a sharp decline in 2020-understandably so, given the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent government or locally mandated school shutdowns-but rose again sharply in 2021. Conclusions: Recent data suggest continued upward trends in school shootings, school mass shootings, and related deaths over the past 5 years. Notably, gun violence disproportionately affects boys, especially Black boys, with much higher gun deaths per capita for this group than for any other group of youth. Implications for policy and practice are provided.

Predicting Contribution in High Achieving Black and Latinx Youth: The Role of Critical Reflection, Hope, and Mentoring.

Contemporary approaches to adolescent development are framed by positive youth development models. A key outcome of these models is that healthy and positively developing youth are more likely to contribute to their family, schools, and communities. However, little work on contribution and its antecedents has been conducted with youth of color. As high achieving youth of color often become leaders in their communities, it is important to consider malleable predictors of contribution within this population. Therefore, through a cross-sectional design, we examined the relations between youth critical reflection, hopeful future expectations, and mentoring relationship quality and youth contribution in a sample of 177 youth of color (60% Black, 40% Latinx) attending an afterschool college preparation program at six sites around the U.S. Results indicated that youth critical reflection, hopeful future expectations, and mentoring relationship quality significantly predicted contribution. Exploratory analyses suggested that these relations were significant for Black youth but not Latinx youth. Implications of these findings for future scholarship are discussed.

Critical consciousness in children and adolescents: A systematic review, critical assessment, and recommendations for future research.

Critical consciousness refers to an individual's awareness of oppressive systemic forces in society, a sense of efficacy to work against oppression, and engagement in individual or collective action against oppression. In the past few decades, interest in critical consciousness as a resource that may promote thriving in marginalized people has grown tremendously. This article critically examines the results of a systematic review of 67 studies of critical consciousness in children and adolescents, published between 1998 and 2019. Across these studies, major themes included the role of socialization experiences, relationships, and context in the development of critical consciousness. In addition, critical consciousness was associated with a number of adaptive developmental outcomes, including career-related, civic, social-emotional, and academic outcomes-especially for marginalized youth. However, our analysis highlights several critical gaps in the literature. We highlight the need for further delineation of the impacts of parent and peer socialization on critical consciousness in specific developmental periods and for studying critical consciousness at multiple levels of the ecological system. We further note the dearth of rigorous experimental or quasi-experimental studies in the area of interventions to promote critical consciousness. In addition, we note that developmental questions-questions about the nature and function of critical consciousness over time-are largely unanswered in the literature, including questions about how critical consciousness manifests and develops during childhood. Leveraging the findings of our systematic review, we outline key next steps for this rapidly growing area of research. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Critical action as a pathway to social mobility among marginalized youth.

Marginalized youth's development occurs in contexts rife with racialized, gendered, and socioeconomic social identity threats and barriers to social mobility. An emergent line of inquiry suggests critical action-a component of critical consciousness, defined as engaging in individual or collective social action to produce social change-may bolster career development for those experiencing marginalization. Yet, the specific mechanisms underlying critical action-career development associations are not well understood. Applying structural equation modeling (SEM) to 4 waves of longitudinal data from the Maryland Adolescent Development in Context Study (when participants were 17, 19, 21, and 29 years old), the authors explore the role of critical action for African American participants from lower-SES households (n = 261). The obtained model, which links critical action to career expectancies in adolescence and occupational attainment in adulthood, converges with earlier research linking critical consciousness to career development, social mobility pathways, and occupational attainment among marginalized youth. This study adds to previous literature by suggesting that critical action: (a) plays a significant role in fostering career expectancies in adolescence, particularly during high school, among marginalized youth; and (b) may promote the attainment of higher-status occupations in adulthood. Given the role of occupational attainment in social mobility and inclusion, these findings suggest an important mechanism by which social inequities may be narrowed. (PsycINFO Database Record