Creating developmentally auspicious school environments for African American boys.

African American (AA) boys face serious barriers to academic success, many of which are uncommon--or absent--in the lives of AA girls, other children of color, and European American children. In this chapter, we identify nine critical challenges to the successful education of AA boys and review possible solutions. In addition, we evaluate one particular reform, public single-sex schooling, as a possible solution to the challenges facing AA boys. Considering the evidence, we argue that recent efforts to expand the existence of public single-sex schools are rarely grounded in empirical findings. Given the lack of compelling evidence and the high stakes for AA boys, we call for more rigorous evaluations of the outcomes of sex-segregated programs that specifically target AA boys.

Identification of emotional facial expressions following recovery from depression.

This study investigated the identification of facial expressions of emotion in currently nondepressed participants who had a history of recurrent depressive episodes (recurrent major depression; RMD) and never-depressed control participants (CTL). Following a negative mood induction, participants were presented with faces whose expressions slowly changed from neutral to full intensity. Identification of facial expressions was measured by the intensity of the expression at which participants could accurately identify whether faces expressed happiness, sadness, or anger. There were no group differences in the identification of sad or angry expressions. Compared with CTL participants, however, RMD participants required significantly greater emotional intensity in the faces to correctly identify happy expressions. These results indicate that biases in the processing of emotional facial expressions are evident even after individuals have recovered from a depressive episode.