The transition to middle school can be challenging for adolescents, especially for Black and Latinx students, who are simultaneously navigating a critical phase of racial and ethnic identity formation, as well as possibly confronting negative racial stereotypes about their academic performance and negotiating an environment in which they feel they do not fully belong. Borman and colleagues will investigate whether brief psychological interventions that improved academic outcomes in the short term for Black and Latinx students compared to White and Asian students have longer-term effects. This study will build on prior district-wide, student-level randomized trials of two middle school interventions, one that affirms an individual’s personal values to mitigate negative stereotypes about identity and another that seeks to improve one’s sense of belonging in school. Using newly available longitudinal student-level administrative data, Borman and colleagues will employ multi-level models to examine whether the two interventions, delivered in double-blind randomized controlled trials when students were in 6th and 7th grade, have positive effects on on-time graduation rates in 12th grade, longitudinal GPA, and suspension counts. Findings will inform the scaling up of the interventions to nationally representative samples.
Do brief psychological interventions designed to mitigate identity threats among Black and Latinx secondary students have enduring effects that reduce academic inequalities?
