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Critical Reflection and Positive Youth Development among White and Black Adolescents: Is Understanding Inequality Connected to Thriving?

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Abstract

Critical consciousness supports youth’s development and participation in civil society, yet it remains unclear how this process is connected to indicators of thriving, such as the Five Cs. This study examined critical reflection—a component of critical consciousness—and the Five Cs among 515 youth (Mage = 13.38; 46.47% female): White youth attending middle-income schools (N = 112), White youth attending low-income schools (N = 250), and Black youth attending low-income schools (N = 153). Black youth attending low-income schools had the highest critical racial reflection and White youth attending low-income schools had the lowest critical socioeconomic reflection. Critical reflection was negatively associated with some of the Five Cs, but only among White youth. The implications of these findings and suggestions for future research are provided.

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Notes

  1. It is important to note that Meade et al. (2008) argues that invariance is only supported when ΔCFI < 0.002, although this recommendation is not universally accepted (e.g., Little 2013).

  2. These findings were generally replicated using single-group regression models with composite scale scores, which suggests that they are robust to different analytic techniques. The only substantive difference between the latent correlation models compared to the single-group regression models was that, in the latter model, there was an additional significant negative association between critical racial refection and competence among White youth attending middle-income schools.

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Authors’ Contributions

C.P.T. conceived the study, participated in its design and coordination, and drafted the manuscript; J.G. participated in the study design and contributed to writing the manuscript; K.L.B. participated in the study design and contributed to writing the manuscript. E.P.B. collected study data, participated in the study design, and contributed to writing the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Funding

This work was supported in part by a grant from the Stupski Foundation (Bowers, Geldhof, Mcquillin co-PIs). The work was also supported by an Interdisciplinary Research Innovations grant from Clemson University to E.P.B.

Data Sharing and Declaration

The dataset analyzed in the current study are not available for public use but are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Human Development and Family Studies, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR, 97331, USA

    Corine P. Tyler & G. John Geldhof

  2. Youth Development Leadership, Clemson University, Clemson, SC, USA

    Katrina L. Black & Edmond P. Bowers

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Tyler, C.P., Geldhof, G.J., Black, K.L. et al. Critical Reflection and Positive Youth Development among White and Black Adolescents: Is Understanding Inequality Connected to Thriving?. J Youth Adolescence 49, 757–771 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-019-01092-1

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