Connecting research, children's media, and identity during the U.S. Black Lives Matter movement

ABSTRACT

The article reflects on the issue of connecting research, children's media, and identity during the U.S. Black Lives Matter movement. One striking notion circulating during the COVID-19 pandemic is that personal and professional boundaries and identities have been tested, even eliminated. Before COVID-19, working completely from home had been uncommon for U.S. academics;now homes are workspaces for many. Social scientists uphold objectivity in their work, but presently, perhaps we all can understand how personal needs and health can affect, or even deter, the research we produce. Yet, for scholars like me - biracial Black, raising minoritized children, navigating realms of both privilege and need, a former teacher of Black and Latinx students, studying ways to use and design media to promote positive outcomes for marginalized youth - work has always been profoundly and inherently personal. The crises of 2020 have not altered that reality, only made it more salient. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)