Effects of brief mindfulness practice on reading performance among racially minoritized adolescents.

This research evaluated the effects of a year-long mindfulness intervention in a predominately Black student sample in an urban high-poverty middle school. Five English Language Arts classrooms (n = 56) were randomly assigned to brief daily 5-min mindfulness practice or an active control. Students were measured at three time points throughout the school year on standardized curriculum-based measures of reading performance. Results indicate that students in the mindfulness condition had significantly higher reading scores (sentence-level comprehension and fluency) than students assigned to control condition at the end of the school year. Our findings indicate that brief mindfulness practice may indirectly affect performance in specific academic skills. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Teachers' anti-black biases in disciplinary decisions: The role of mindfulness.

Research suggests that disparities in exclusionary discipline can be explained, in part, by teachers' anti-Black biases in disciplinary decision-making. An emerging body of literature also speaks to the benefits of cultivating mindfulness for bias reduction. The present study adds to the literature by assessing whether mindfulness is associated with differences in teachers' responses to student disciplinary infractions as a function of student signaled race, which was manipulated as a between-subjects factor. We predicted that teachers with lower levels of mindfulness, as measured via self-report, would demonstrate greater anti-Black bias in response to students' disciplinary files than teachers with higher levels of mindfulness. Teachers (N = 179) completed the study via an online research participant platform. Consistent with hypothesis, we found that participants' self-reported mindfulness in teaching moderated their responses to a disciplinary file as a function of student signaled race, b = -1.05, F(1, 175) = 4.50, p = 0.035, ηp2 = 0.03, 95% CI [-2.03, -0.07]. Specifically, participants with lower levels of mindfulness rated the disciplinary infraction as more severe if it was enacted by a Black boy compared to a White boy. At higher levels of mindfulness, however, the opposite pattern emerged; participants demonstrated more leniency if the infraction was perpetrated by a Black boy, relative to a White boy. Our research adds to the literature and suggests that improving teachers' ability to remain present in the classroom may improve their ability to make more equitable decisions in managing students' misbehavior.

Discrimination, Depression, and Anxiety Among Sexual Minority and Heterosexual Young Adults: The Role of Self-Compassion.

Purpose: The objectives of this study were to examine whether self-compassion may be a protective coping resource against depression and anxiety symptoms for young adults experiencing discrimination and to explore the protective influence of self-compassion among sexual minority young adults (SMYAs) relative to heterosexual peers. Methods: Undergraduate college students (N = 251; 189 heterosexual and 62 sexual minority individuals) completed online self-report questionnaires related to discrimination experiences, depression, anxiety, and self-compassion. Two moderated moderation analyses were conducted to (1) identify whether self-compassion buffered the relationship between discrimination and depression and between discrimination and anxiety and (2) whether this buffering effect varied by sexual identity (i.e., heterosexual vs. sexual minority). Results: Self-compassion significantly moderated the relationship between discrimination and depression for the full sample. Further examination revealed that self-compassion significantly moderated the relationship between discrimination and depression among SMYAs, but not among heterosexual young adults. SMYAs with higher self-compassion reported fewer depression symptoms than SMYAs with lower self-compassion, even when reporting more frequent experiences of discrimination. Self-compassion did not moderate the relationship between discrimination and anxiety for the full sample, nor did this relationship vary by sexual identity. Conclusions: Self-compassion may be a particularly important coping resource to protect against depression symptoms among SMYAs experiencing discrimination. These findings provide an impetus for SMYA-tailored intervention and prevention efforts that incorporate cultivating self-compassion as a protective coping resource to buffer deleterious effects of discrimination.

Engaging White parents to address their White children's racial biases in the Black-White context.

Multiple studies (n = 1065 parents, 625 females, 437 males, 3 nonbinary, 99.06% White; n = 80, 5 to 7-year-old children, 35 girls, 45 boys, 87.50% White; data collection September 2017-January 2021) investigated White U.S. parents' thinking about White children's Black-White racial biases. In Studies 1-3, parents reported that their own and other children would not express racial biases. When predicting children's social preferences for Black and White children (Study 2), parents underestimated their own and other children's racial biases. Reading an article about the nature, prevalence, and consequences of White children's racial biases (Study 3) increased parents' awareness of, concern about, and motivation to address children's biases (relative to a control condition). The findings have implications for engaging White parents to address their children's racial biases.

Gender differences in the stress-buffering effects of mindfulness facets on substance use among low-income adolescents.

Problematic substance use during adolescence predicts numerous adverse outcomes, including increased risk of substance use disorders in adulthood. Adolescents often use substances to cope with stress, particularly adolescents who have experienced environmental stress in childhood (e.g., low-income environments), but research indicates stress-related substance use disorders may develop differently across gender. This highlights a need to identify coping resources for stress-related substance use and understand whether these coping resources are differentially effective across gender. Mindfulness has garnered evidence as a coping resource for stress-related problematic substance use; however, there is limited research on how specific mindfulness facets (e.g., nonjudgment) may buffer against stress-related substance use among adolescents. This study examined whether overall mindfulness and specific facets buffered the association between stress and substance use differentially across gender in a predominantly low-income, racially-diverse (42 % Black, 24 % White, 15 % Hispanic/Latinx, 13 % Asian, 3 % American Indian/Alaskan Native, and 3 % multiracial) sample of adolescents (n = 212) using moderated moderation models. Girls with lower levels of two mindfulness facets (i.e., acceptance/nonjudgement, decentering/nonreactivity), relative to girls with higher levels, demonstrated a greater probability of substance use with increased stress. Conversely, boys with higher levels of acceptance/nonjudgement and decentering/nonreactivity, relative to boys with lower levels, reported a greater probability of substance use with increased stress. Results suggest that acceptance/nonjudgment and decentering/nonreactivity may be protective against stress-related substance use for girls and potentially contraindicated for boys, indicating that adolescent substance use prevention and intervention efforts may need to be tailored by gender.

Meta-Analysis of Mindfulness-Based Program Soles of the Feet for Disruptive Behaviors.

Mindfulness-based programs are a promising intervention modality for reducing disruptive behavior, and Soles of the Feet (SOF) is one program that teaches internal awareness of personal events (e.g., unpleasant emotions) and a self-regulation strategy to decrease disruptive behaviors. This study conducted a meta-analysis of single-case research design (SCRD) studies that implemented SOF to decrease disruptive behaviors. Existing SOF studies were evaluated using high-quality SCRD standards, resulting in 15 studies included in the analysis (49 participants; mean age 23.12 years (SD = 15.87); highly heterogeneous backgrounds). Studies were analyzed to calculate effect sizes using Tau-U, an innovative non-parametric statistical approach for estimating effect sizes in SCRD studies. The aggregated weighted Tau-U effect size of SOF across all studies was -0.87. Moderator analyses indicated SOF's effectiveness was robust across participant characteristics and delivery formats. This meta-analysis suggests that SOF is a moderately effective evidence-based practice for reducing disruptive behavior.

Diversity Training Goals, Limitations, and Promise: A Review of the Multidisciplinary Literature.

In this review, we utilize a narrative approach to synthesize the multidisciplinary literature on diversity training. In examining hundreds of articles on the topic, we discovered that the literature is amorphous and complex and does not allow us to reach decisive conclusions regarding best practices in diversity training. We note that scholars of diversity training, when testing the efficacy of their approaches, too often use proxy measures for success that are far removed from the types of consequential outcomes that reflect the purported goals of such trainings. We suggest that the enthusiasm for, and monetary investment in, diversity training has outpaced the available evidence that such programs are effective in achieving their goals. We recommend that researchers and practitioners work together for future investigations to propel the science of diversity training forward. We conclude with a roadmap for how to create a more rigorous and relevant science of diversity training.