There is an importance in the black community of embracing Afrocentric Cultural Values and sharing to our younger generations and adolescents. I chose a scholarly article that utilize this factor in its hypothesis. From the Journal of Black Psychology, the article is titled Examining Afrocentric Cultural Values, ethnic Identity, and Substance Use Abstinence in Low-Income, Early Adolescent, African American Girls. This very extensive article was written or experimented by our fellow professors at the University of Austin: Delida Sanchez, Emma Hamilton, Dorie Gilbert, and Elizabeth Vandewater. Their study is about finding a possible link of cultural factors and substance use abstinence among low income African American girls.
There has been
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There are seven core principles that consist values or behavior daily to sustain the ‘Afrocentric culture’. The psychologist creates two hypotheses. The first hypothesis is that ethnic identity exploration would be negatively linked to cigarette, marijuana, and alcohol use of abstinence. This means that they believe that if young African American are still exploring their ethnic identity, meaning they are still searching for their identity, the less they can restrain themselves from consuming drugs or alcohol. Abstinence, according to the dictionary, is the practice of restraining oneself from indulging in something like a substance or alcohol. The second hypothesis is that Afrocentric cultural values would positively linked to cigarette, marijuana, and alcohol use of abstinence. Conversely, they are hoping that there is a positive regression line with these two variables. In simple terms, if a low-income African American adolescent is more aware or identifies their Afrocentric cultural values, than there is an increase in their abstinence from marijuana, cigarettes, and alcohol. This is their way of determining if it is possible to overcome the environmental stresses and pressure that young minority girls living in these conditions …show more content…
I have always been fascinated on different variables that affect young minorities’ emotional, mental, and physical behaviors. I came across this scholarly Journal of Black Psychology in my Psychology of the African American Experience. This field is very important to me because it speak about the community that I connect with and mention that there are different psychological theories and methods that should be used to based on minorities and not a universal
In reading the article, “Why are all the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria”, by Beverly Daniel Tatum, she expresses her thoughts and findings on why kids of the same race tend to hang out more with each other than with kids of the other races. She first goes on to talk about how if you walk into any racially mixed high school cafeteria, you inevitably find that kids with the same race are sitting together (375). She proceeds to say that is doesn’t always start there. She begins to be curious of when racial grouping begins. Tatum goes on to explain that one factor of racial grouping is puberty.
Schalet’s findings fit with the deterministic theories of childhood socialization because parents (society) are controlling and directly telling their children how to think (limited). This model is known for society appropriating the child and has three dimensions: passive children participation, future oriented, and focused on the individual learning experience. An example of this comes from the role of U.S. parents in a child’s abstinence. A child does not have a say in this area (passive voice), besides defying their parents. The parents make this decision for them so that the child can individually learn how this would benefit them in the future.
One trend that African Americans have developed that best relates to chapter two is the trend to get incarcerated. Incarceration best relates to chapter 2 because of one main statement, “Then there are those who wait to have someone force growth on them. They permit the influences to drive them to prison or drug treatment programs, mental hospitals, or some type of religious cult . . . but as soon as they must take responsibility for their lives they find a way to get “re-canned” (p. 17-18).
In chapter 4 in the Pathways to Resiliency: Black and Latinos Families in America textbook I read that formation and establishing intimate relationships are important psychosocial tasks during teenage years and young adulthood. One possible explanation for this research is the assumption that youthful relationships tend to be casual and short term in nature. It is crucial to examine romantic relationships between young people because they play as important role in their future relationships. In one study found that many young people held unrealistic expectations to be related to decreased relationship satisfaction and stability among adults.
The first study supported their hypothesis that the program would increase pro-abstinence (Rue et al., 2012). The second study found that Family Action Model for Empowerment program helped to reduce risky behavior in teens in the mindset of abstinence (Abel et al., 2008). The third study found that their abstinence Reasons of Heart program achieved a significant reduction in teen sexual development (Weed et al., 2008). My position within the debate was to argue that Abstinence-only programs do work. Based on all the supporting evidence and results of my three articles, they prove and support the idea that abstinence programs do
In Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow: The Age of Colorblindness, she argues that the debate on the war on drugs unfairly targets those of color; typically young, black men. She states how many African Americans have been in prison due to drug convictions and now carry the title of a felon with them for life. Alexander recognizes that the war on drugs was a policy with an attempt to crack down on drugs in certain communities, however, she still believes these policies target minorities. She supports this with the “stop and frisk” policy, which grants the officers with the ability to search individuals on their own natural “suspicion.” It is most obvious that poor black men are more likely to be stopped over white individuals.
Chapter 1: Introduction The strengths and resilience of African American single mothers has historically changed families and communities for the better. However, African American single mothers are often a vulnerable population at risk for poor physical and mental health with negative outcomes outweighing both their female and male counterparts (Hatcher, Rayens, Peden, & Hall, 2012). There has been numerous race comparative self-esteem studies and research on the effects of single parenthood on child and adolescent self-esteem.
In the book “The American School” written by Joel Spring there was a lot of talk about the influences of other cultures who impacted the United States. The popular minority cultures talked about in this book are the African Americans, Hispanic Americans, Asian Americans and the Naïve Americans. They all had historical events that impacted their culture. They are were faced with challenges and obstacle’s they had to overcome. Each of these cultures brings a negative and positive aspect to the American culture.
Even in interracial environments such as schools, that interracial contact with whites did not negatively affect Blacks’ self-esteem. The above findings are especially pertinent to the study of African American women and self-esteem. Black women were once predicted to have low self-esteem because scholars thought they internalized demeaning messages of themselves and measured themselves against a white
Blacks demonstrate behavioral patterns which set them apart from mainstream society. The intermixing of two cultures, one of blacks born into slavery and the other of newly arrived African slaves, have created a strong basis for black culture in the United States (Hale 1982). Naturally, the values and mannerisms of the culture are often transliterated into the classroom. In school, black students tend to share a set of characteristics which distinguish them from their peers. Their mode of interaction is animated, interpersonal and confrontational (Kochman 1983).
This model suggest that many African-American adolescents occupy the immersion-emersion stage (Bimper & Harrison, 2011; Harrison et al., 2002). The immersion-emersion stage stimulates pride in one’s racial identity and is characterized by a withdrawal from the dominant culture and an immersion into African-American culture (Sue & Sue, 1999). This phase may elicit an identity set (Collins, 1970) perspective, wherein adolescents will desire to be like a person or group they admire, such as an African-American professional athlete or entertainer that is considered (by mainstream white America) a successful Black man (Sue & Sue, 1999). The perceived installation of this self-identity, is considered the core of why a black athlete may struggle with transitioning out of sports or detach from their athletic identity. There are many variables in assisting these beliefs (billboards, TV, social media, video games, etc.)
African American youth in the United States are not only expected to undergo typical developmental experiences that are the hallmark of adolescence, such as physical growth and development and developing a desire to assert their independence; they are also coping with a world in which they may be normatively expected to experience racial prejudice. According to Spencer (2006, 2008),
An Analysis of the Problem of Racial Socialization in African American Children in Support of “The Village Talks: Racial Socialization of Our Children” by Harriette Pipes McAdoo (187)Introduction: The subject of this paper will define the problem of racial socialization of African American children in the educational and career development process. In the educational process, African American children must contend with a primarily white hegemonic system that devalues their race, cultural heritage, and value as students in the learning process. More so, these racialized values reduce their potential in a predominantly white society. Students have developed “double-consciousness” that forces them to see through a conflicting sense of “white”
In addition to teaching about the health benefits, abstinence programs help teens develop character traits that prepare then for “future-oriented goals”. Abstinence programs can have many benefits such as reducing early sexual activity among teenagers and therefore decreasing their exposure to unwanted pregnancies, STIs, and psycho-emotional harm (Kim). Various studies have shown that abstinent teens have reported better psychological well-being than those who regularly engage in sexual activities and a study published by the American Medical Association found that, “two years after attending an eight-hour abstinence program, about one-third of the participants had initiated in sexual activity compared to nearly one-half of the non participants” (Kim). They also studied alternative programs that taught contraception, or the “safe sex” approach, instead of abstinence, and found that these programs did not reduce sexual activity in teens and failed to increase the use of contraception. These studies show that teaching abstinence has benefits is possibly more advantageous than teaching comprehensive sex education.
Furthermore, the researchers’ assessment of cohabitating relationships was included in the overall research of assessing romantic relationships, substance use in early adults, including the relationship types, the partner’s substance use, and the quality of the relationship. Moreover, in relation to my song choice and proposed test the findings and conclusions the researchers came to was that “across different relationship statuses, partner use is important and moderates the associations between relationship quality and both heavy drinking and marijuana use. More supportive, enjoyable, and satisfying relationships were related to less use only in situations in which the intimate partner was not substantially involved in substance use (Fleming, White, & Catalano, 2010).” The relevance of this is that in the song the narrator discusses how the more her partner uses substances the less satisfying the relationship is, while the research shows that when one of the partners were not heavily using substances the it was more