In collaboration with Casa San Jose, this project provides opportunities for Latinx youth to explore their ethnic-racial identity, critical consciousness, and role in research that advances the well-being of Latinx communities in Pittsburgh, PA. Youth will engage in a Photovoice project to document their experiences with racism and xenophobia in the City, and will present their findings to community stakeholders in order to develop policy that promotes anti-racist communities for Latinx youth.

 
Community-Agency and Faculty Collaborators:
Casa San Jose
&
Maya Ragavan, Ph.D.

We are interested in exploring the concept of critical consciousness -- the way people think critically about their own and other peoples' marginalization -- through this study. We are also curious to see how inter-racial group contact among youth populations relates to anti-racist action, how it may be moderated by political efficacy and critical reflection, and how everything ties back to critical action. All in all, we are excited to present this as the first quantitative research study being conducted that focuses on how teens challenge racism in their communities. This survey-based study investigated the individual (e.g., critical consciousness) and contextual predictors (e.g., school racial socialization, intergroup contact) of anti-racism action among a nationally representative sample of youth across the United States. 

Faculty Collaborators:
Adriana Aldana, Ph.D.
&
Katie Richards-Schuster, Ph.D.