Sexing the baby: Part 2--Applying dynamic systems theory to the emergences of sex-related differences in infants and toddlers.

During the first three years of life, children acquire knowledge about their own gender and the gendered nature of their environment. At the same time, sex-related behavioral differences emerge. How are we to understand the processes by which bodily differentiation, behavioral differentiation and gendered knowledge intertwine to produce male and female, masculine and feminine? In this article, we describe four central developmental systems concepts applied by psychologists to the study of early human development and develop them in enough depth to show how they play out, and what sort of knowledge-gathering strategies they require. The general theoretical approach to understanding the emergence of bodily/behavioral difference has broad applicability for the health sciences and for the study of gender disparities. Using dynamic systems theory will deepen and extend the reach of theories of embodiment current in the health sciences literature.

Sexing the baby: Part 1--What do we really know about sex differentiation in the first three years of life?

The most common paradigm used to analyze health differences between men and women, is to divide the body from the social environment. In such a model, the bodily contribution and the social contribution add up to 100%. A few health science researchers offer more sophisticated approaches. None, however, offer an intensive study of the first several years of life in order to offer a model which integrates biology and culture in a fashion that demonstrates the productive processes by which gender itself emerges. In this article, we identify the earliest known sex-related biological and behavioral differences in young infants, toddlers and their parents and indicate how these might relate to health and disease. We frame these differences using unifying concepts from the study of neuroplasticity and dynamic systems theory.

Being bicultural: a mixed-methods study of adolescents' implicitly and explicitly measured multiethnic identities.

Understanding how ethnic identities develop in adolescence is currently limited by a reliance on self-report paper-and-pencil measures. This mixed-methods study presents a novel response time measure, the Multiethnic Identities Processing Task (MIPT), to quantify bicultural adolescents' implicit identifications with ethnic and racial identity labels. Eighty-four adolescents (age 14-21 years) of diverse ethnic and racial backgrounds self-identified as bicultural or not bicultural and described their ethnic identities, pride, and ethnic centrality during a brief interview. Participants were assigned to complete either the interview (self-prime) or the MIPT (no prime) first. Results indicate that bicultural adolescents readily endorsed a variety of ethnic and racial labels in the MIPT, reflecting their multifaceted identities. Younger bicultural adolescents showed a large inhibited response to the label "White," indicating some hesitation in deciding whether the label was "like me" or "not like me." Heart rate monitoring and qualitative analyses of interviews provide some insight into this pattern of results. Findings are discussed with respect to developmental theory, and the strengths of using both implicit and explicit measures to understand multiethnic identity development in adolescence.

Perceptions of Racism in Children and Youth (PRaCY): properties of a self-report instrument for research on children's health and development.

Experiences of racial discrimination have been demonstrated to be related to racial and ethnic disparities in mental and physical health and healthcare. There has been little study, however, of the relationship between racism and health in children, and few psychometrically valid and reliable instruments to measure Perceptions of Racism in Children and Youth (PRaCY) exist. This paper reports on the development and testing of such an instrument, the PRaCY. Development of the instrument began with open-ended qualitative interviews, from which a proto-questionnaire was created. The questionnaire gathered information on the prevalence, attribution, emotional responses, and coping responses to 23 situations identified by participants in the qualitative phase. The proto-questionnaire was administered to 277 children between the ages of 8 and 18 years (38% Latino/a, 31% African-American, 19% multiracial/multicultural, 7% West Indian/Caribbean, and 5% Other). Item analysis resulted in two developmentally appropriate 10-item instruments (one for ages 7-13, another for ages 14-18). Internal consistency reliability was strong (alpha = 0.78 for both versions of the instrument). Confirmatory factor analysis demonstrated good fit for both versions (younger-Comparative Fit Index (CFI): 0.967, Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA): 0.047; older-CFI: 0.934, RMSEA: 0.056). Differential item functioning analyses demonstrated no group-specific biases in item response. PRaCY scores were appropriately associated with higher depressive symptom scores and elevated anxiety scores in the younger sample. Results indicate that the PRaCY is a valid and reliable instrument that measures perceptions of racism and discrimination in children and youth aged 8-18 from diverse racial/ethnic backgrounds.

Racism and child health: a review of the literature and future directions.

OBJECTIVE: Racism is a mechanism through which racial/ethnic disparities occur in child health. To assess the present state of research into the effects of racism on child health, a review of the literature was undertaken. METHODS: A MEDLINE review of the literature was conducted between October and November 2007. Studies reporting on empirical research relating to racism or racial discrimination as a predictor or contributor to a child health outcome were included in this review. The definition of "child health" was broad and included behavioral, mental, and physical health. RESULTS: Forty articles describing empirical research on racism and child health were found. Most studies (65%) reported on research performed on behavioral and mental health outcomes. Other areas studied included birth outcomes, cardiovascular and metabolic diseases, and satisfaction with care. Most research has been conducted on African-American samples (70%), on adolescents and on older children, and without a uniformly standardized approach to measuring racism. Furthermore, many studies used measures that were created for adult populations. CONCLUSIONS: There are a limited number of studies evaluating the relationship between racism and child health. Most studies, to date, show relationships between perceived racism and behavioral and mental health. Future studies need to include more ethnically diverse minority groups and needs to consider studying the effects of racism in younger children. Instruments need to be developed that measure perceptions of racism in children and youth that take into account the unique contexts and developmental levels of children, as well as differences in the perception of racism in different ethnocultural groups. Furthermore, studies incorporating racism as a specific psychosocial stressor that can potentially have biophysiologic sequelae need to be conducted to understand the processes and mechanisms through which racism may contribute to child health disparities.

Psychological and demographic correlates of early academic skill development among American Indian and Alaska Native youth: a growth modeling study.

Research regarding the development of early academic skills among American Indian and Alaska Native (AIAN) students has been very limited to date. Using a nationally representative sample of AIAN, Hispanic, African American, and White children at school entry, the authors used latent growth models to estimate the associations among poverty, low parental education, living in a rural location, as well as child attitudes toward learning and internalizing/externalizing behaviors, with mathematical and reading cognitive skill development across the 1st 4 years of school. Results indicate that AIAN children entered kindergarten with scores on both mathematical and reading cognitive tests that were comparable to their peers from other ethnic groups of color. Importantly, all children who entered kindergarten with lower cognitive skill scores also acquired skills more slowly over the next 4 years. Having a positive approach to learning at the start of kindergarten was associated with cognitive skill levels at school entry nearly 1 standard deviation above the population average. Results are discussed with reference to the shared early educational profiles observed between AIAN and other children of color. These findings provide a much-needed update regarding early academic development among AIAN children.

The Color of My Skin: A Measure to Assess Children's Perceptions of Their Skin Color.

The Color of My Skin is an instrument developed to assess children's internalized idea (abstraction) of the color of their skin; their satisfaction with that color; the desire, if any, to change the color of their skin; and their affect regarding their skin color. The assessment is part of a questionnaire utilized in a 3-year longitudinal study that examines psychosocial development, physical health, and behavioral adjustment of Puerto Rican children (N = 257) reared in the Greater Boston area. The results demonstrate that children's internalized representation of their skin color is a construct that can be reliably and validly measured. The children's ratings of their skin color were not associated with their sex, school grade, ethnic identity, the child's or the parent's nativity, or the racial or ethnic compositions of 3 social contexts: their neighborhood, their classmates, and their closest friends. Puerto Rican children did not show a preference for light-colored skin. Moreover, there were no significant differences in self-esteem based on the child's self-reported skin color. The lack of association between self-esteem and skin color was interpreted in light of a developmental tendency prevalent in early to middle childhood to place a positive value on different aspects of one's self. Whereas almost all children (96%) reported being happy or very happy with their color, 16% of the children would like to change their skin color if they could (51% to a lighter and 46% to a darker color).

PSYCHOLOGICAL ACCULTURATION: DEVELOPMENT OF A NEW MEASURE FOR PUERTO RICANS ON THE U.S. MAINLAND.

Most instruments designed to measure acculturation have relied on specific cultural behaviors and preferences as primary indicators of acculturation. In contrast, feelings of belonging and emotional attachment to cultural communities have not been widely used. The Psychological Acculturation Scale (PAS) was developed to assess acculturation from a phenomenological perspective, with items pertaining to the individual's sense of psychological attachment to and belonging within the Anglo-American and Latino/Hispanic cultures. Responses from samples of bilingual individuals and Puerto Rican adolescents and adults are used to establish a high degree of measurement equivalence across the Spanish and English versions of the scale along with high levels of internal consistency and construct validity. The usefulness of the PAS and the importance of studying acculturation from a phenomenological perspective are discussed.