Skip to main content
  • Home
  • About
  • Faculty Experts
  • For The Media
  • ’Cuse Conversations Podcast
  • Topics
    • Alumni
    • Events
    • Faculty
    • Students
    • All Topics
  • Contact
  • Submit
Health & Society
  • All News
  • Arts & Culture
  • Business & Economy
  • Campus & Community
  • Health & Society
  • Media, Law & Policy
  • STEM
  • Veterans
  • |
  • Alumni
  • The Peel
  • Athletics
Sections
  • All News
  • Arts & Culture
  • Business & Economy
  • Campus & Community
  • Health & Society
  • Media, Law & Policy
  • STEM
  • Veterans
  • |
  • Alumni
  • The Peel
  • Athletics
  • Home
  • About
  • Faculty Experts
  • For The Media
  • ’Cuse Conversations Podcast
  • Topics
    • Alumni
    • Events
    • Faculty
    • Students
    • All Topics
  • Contact
  • Submit
Health & Society

CFS Doctoral Student, Professor Get Grant to Study Racial-Ethnic Socialization in Children

Friday, January 30, 2015, By Michele Barrett
Share
Falk College of Sport and Human DynamicsResearch and Creative

Child and family studies doctoral student Kimberly Davidson and Jaipaul Roopnarine, the Jack Reilly Endowed Professor of Child and Family Studies and director of the Reilly Institute for Early Childhood and Provider Education, have received a $25,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, Head Start Research Scholars. They will explore how children learn about race and ethnicity and the roles that home environment, the neighborhood where they live and the child care programs they attend play in their racial and ethnic socialization.

Kimberly Davidson

Kimberly Davidson

The study’s findings have the potential to influence Head Start policy development related to multicultural curriculum, teacher professional development and parent involvement strategies, as well as to increase parent-teacher communication at the community level.

As the U.S. population continues to diversify, early childhood programs strive to meet the needs of culturally diverse families. While parents and teachers are the primary providers of socialization that gives young children the tools they need to thrive in today’s diverse world, they often do not adequately address topics of race and ethnicity, which is detrimental to healthy child development.

Davidson’s and Roopnarine’s study seeks to examine the racial-ethnic socialization of preschool-age children in home and school environments by multiple caregivers. Using cultural-ecological models as a guide, the study looks at components within each socialization setting that include: parents/teachers, physical environments and the racial-ethnic composition of neighborhoods/child care programs.

Utilizing a proposed sample of approximately 200 three- to five-year-old children and their families that participate in Head Start programs in Upstate New York, the researchers will examine the effects of similar and dissimilar home and school racial-ethnic socialization on children’s socioemotional and cognitive development. The racially and ethnically diverse population of Head Start families will allow the researchers to define typologies of socialization between groups and will speak to the variation of child care needs by cultural orientation.

The Early Care and Education Research Scholars: Head Start Graduate Student Research Grant supports Davidson’s doctoral dissertation project titled, “Divergence or Convergence of Home and School Racial-Ethnic Socialization: Effects on Preschool Children’s Racial Attitudes, Socioemotional and Cognitive Development.” It is one of only six grants awarded nationally in a highly competitive process. Davidson presented her project at the Annual Meeting of the Child Care Policy Research Consortium in early November in Washington, D.C.

Davidson was honored in 2013 with the Alice Sterling Honig Award for graduate studies excellence in the Department of Child and Family Studies. A member of the Kappa Omicron Nu honor society, she has published several peer-reviewed journal articles, including “Parenting practices in Guyana and Trinidad and Tobago: Connections to preschoolers’ social and cognitive skills,” in the Interamerican Journal of Psychology. Along with Roopnarine, she currently has book chapters in press: “Cultural variations in young children’s play: A selective overview,” in The SAGE Encyclopedia of Contemporary Early Childhood Education and “Parent-child play across cultures: Theoretical considerations and suggestions for advancing play research,” in the Handbook of the Study of Play.

Davidson’s master’s thesis at the University of Tennessee examined the conceptualizations of race and ethnicity in a preschool classroom. Since arriving at Syracuse University, Davidson has worked closely with Roopnarine in developing seminars for local childhood educators through the Jack Reilly Institute for Early Childhood and Provider Education. She also serves as editorial assistant for the journal Fathering, which Roopnarine edits.

Davidson has served as a teaching assistant for several classes in the Department of Child and Family Studies, including “Child and Family in Cross-Cultural Perspectives” and “The Development of Children and Youth.” She is currently independently teaching the CFS course “Family and Child Intervention.” She is vice president of the Student Council on Family Relations and is a member of the Society for Research on Child Development, Society for Cross-Cultural Research and the National Association of Multicultural Education.

  • Author

Michele Barrett

  • Recent
  • University Musicians, West Point Band to Perform Together This Weekend As Part of Events Around Military Appreciation Day
    Friday, September 22, 2023, By Christine Weber
  • Turning Young Enthusiasts Into Scientific Researchers
    Friday, September 22, 2023, By Wendy S. Loughlin
  • Languages Unlock Opportunities for English for Lawyers Alumna
    Thursday, September 21, 2023, By Hope Alvarez
  • Fall 2023 Career Week: Helping Students Achieve Professional Goals
    Thursday, September 21, 2023, By Gabrielle Lake
  • A Commitment to Arts and Sciences Excellence
    Thursday, September 21, 2023, By Dan Bernardi

More In Health & Society

International Drug Policy Academy Offers a Unique Opportunity for Students Interested in Addiction Studies

Needing one more class or an independent study to complete a master’s degree in public health, Falk College of Sport and Human Dynamics student Emily Graham turned to Public Health Professor Dessa Bergen-Cico for advice and Bergen-Cico offered the opportunity…

Hendricks Chapel Dean, Chaplains and Students Attend Parliament of the World’s Religions

Representatives from Hendricks Chapel recently attended the Parliament of the World’s Religions, held in August in Chicago. This year’s theme was “A Call to Conscience: Defending Freedom and Human Rights.” More than 7,000 participants from more than 95 countries, representing…

Roundtable: 3 School of Education Alumni Define ‘Human Thriving’ in the Context of Global Diversity

“Human thriving” is among the areas of distinctive excellence enumerated in the University’s 2023 Academic Strategic Plan. This concept is inspired by the words of Chancellor Erastus Haven. In 1871, he charged Syracuse students “to thrive here, to learn here,…

Lerner Center and Maxwell X Lab Join Sheriff’s Office to Reduce Illicit Drugs’ Impact

The Lerner Center for Public Health Promotion and Population Health and Maxwell X Lab have partnered with the Onondaga County Sheriff’s Office on an initiative aimed at reducing the impact of opioids and other illicit drugs. The two centers, both…

PAIA Doctoral Student Receives Grant for SNAP Research

Clay Fannin, a doctoral student in the Maxwell School’s Department of Public Administration and International Affairs, has received a $25,000 grant from Tufts University to support his dissertation research on the impacts of COVID-era changes to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance…

Subscribe to SU Today

If you need help with your subscription, contact sunews@syr.edu.

Connect With Us

  • X
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Youtube
  • LinkedIn
Social Media Directory

For the Media

Find an Expert Follow @SyracuseUNews
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Youtube
  • LinkedIn
  • @SyracuseU
  • @SyracuseUNews
  • @SUCampus
  • Social Media Directory
  • Accessibility
  • Privacy
  • Campus Status
  • Syracuse.edu
© 2023 Syracuse University News. All Rights Reserved.