Humanizing Developmental Science to Promote Positive Development of Young Men of Color

Abstract

Comments on the chapter by Howard C. Stevenson (see record 2017-01538-005). Stevenson provides a compelling scientific framing of critical issues toward articulating a humanized narrative for understanding, supporting, and facilitating successful development of boys of color. He provides a thoughtful examination of the existing literature and enriches it with personal reflections. He exposes the absence of a humane-oriented frame for understanding how young men of color develop well and emphasizes that they do so while facing ongoing and substantial threats to their health and well-being, as well as to their mortality. Stevenson brings into relief what should already be prominent for us as scientists and as fellow humans: the need for a frame that acknowledges the singular developmental course and set of circumstances that characterize the lives of these men in our country at this time. Stevenson goes further and suggests important opportunities for constructing and applying that frame and provides multiple examples of how the required work is not exotic but rather is an empathic perspective arising through sound application of good methodology. We are reminded that typicality is an important developmental science interest and should be as much a priority for this population as any other. He identifies opportunities to conduct research and scientifically evaluated interventions that acknowledge the proliferation of successes that characterize the vast majority of experiences of young men of color, as well as the harm caused when we implicitly subscribe to the misrepresentation that it is most critical to understand their elevated risk in order to understand and aid their development. Utilizing multiple lines of evidence, Stevenson carefully argues for an alternative, humane correction to our practical and scientific narratives about the socialization pathways and threats to success affecting so many of these young men. The purpose of this chapter is to bring my perspective as a developmental scientist, who has an ecological orientation, and react to Stevenson's persuasive argument, with the goal of augmenting suggestions he provides. These include theoretical and methodological principles and opportunities for pursuing excellent developmental research and sounder action to move from this impoverished and deficient state of understanding of young men of color to an empathic one. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved)