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Despite numerous efforts to attenuate the Black-White discipline gap in U.S. schools, Black students are still suspended for minor infractions at a disproportionately higher rate than their White peers. Using a racially diverse sample (n = 1,515; M[subscript age] = 12.7; 50% boys; 72% Black, 28% White), this 3-year longitudinal study examined whether student perceptions of school racial socialization practices (i.e., cultural socialization, promotion of cultural competence) were linked to a lower likelihood of receiving a suspension for a minor infraction through improved school climate perceptions and whether these links differed between Black and White students. Results showed that school racial socialization was associated with a lower likelihood of receiving a suspension for a minor infraction and improved school climate perceptions for all students. Moreover, students' perceptions of school climate mediated the link between school racial socialization and suspensions among both Black and White students. Considering these results, school racial socialization is a promising means for improving students' school climate perceptions, reducing inequitable disciplinary practices, and fostering school equity.

To reduce the number of chronically absent students in schools annually, cities and municipalities across the United States have implemented programs, initiatives, and invested resources into educational reforms that would lead to improvement in school attendance. Drawing on ecological systems theory and interview data, we examined how organizations within Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania directly worked with students, collaborated with each other, and facilitated opportunities to reduce the impact of chronic absenteeism in the local school district. Interview data revealed how organizations leveraged resources to train key personnel, communicate the importance of daily school attendance, and work directly with students on improving school attendance. Our findings highlight how community approaches to absenteeism require various levels of support from organizations.

Background/Context: Empirical research indicates that teachers across ages and academic contexts regularly engage in emotional labor, and this emotional labor contributes to their job satisfaction, teaching effectiveness, burnout, and emotional well-being both within and outside the classroom. However, because the initial research on emotional labor was situated in the service industries (e.g., restaurants, call centers, airlines), researchers have suggested that the emotional labor framework as it applies to teaching only provides a partial picture of teachers' deeper and more complex emotional practice. Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study: This study aims to determine whether and how teachers' descriptions of their own emotional practice map onto existing emotional labor constructs (emotional display rules, and deep and surface acting) and how the framework may be adapted to better support teachers' implementation of emotional labor. Setting: Participants worked in five charter schools within the same school district but in different areas of a mid-Atlantic metropolitan city. This district identifies itself as serving 4,000 students from "underserved communities" across 13 locations. Population/Participants/Subjects: Full-time K-12 educators (N = 68) who worked across academic subjects (e.g., math, science, language arts) or special subjects (e.g., music, art) participated. Research Design: The current study is qualitative; we employed adapted grounded theory. Data Collection and Analysis: We conducted individual face-to-face semistructured interviews with participants; audio recordings were transcribed verbatim. We developed a codebook through a collaborative and iterative process, and we achieved high interrater reliability before using Dedoose to code the full corpus of data. Findings/Results: There were two key findings: (1) teachers perceived feeling rules in addition to display rules, and (2) teachers described an emotional acting strategy in which they modulated the expressions of their authentic emotions, which we call modulated acting, in addition to surface and deep acting. Conclusions/Recommendations: Including teachers' perceptions of feeling rules and use of modulated acting in emotional labor research has the potential to enhance our understanding of how emotional labor relates to outcomes that are important for both teachers and their students. In addition, we urge teacher educators to include emotional labor in their curricula. Though further research is needed to build a strong literature base on ways in which teachers' emotional labor may connect to their own and their students' outcomes, the emotional labor constructs already have the potential to be useful for both preservice and practicing teachers.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, many families experienced financial and health stressors associated with parental employment. Using multi-informant and daily-diary data from a nationwide U.S. sample of parents and children (626 dyads; 18,780 daily assessments across 30 days: May 18, 2020–June 1, 2020, October 19, 2020–November 2, 2020; parents: Mage = 43, 15% male; children: Mage = 15, 42% male; 36% Black, 26% White, 14% multiracial, 12% Latinx, 11% Asian American, and 1% Native American), this intensive longitudinal study investigated (a) the mediating role of health stress and financial stress in the link between parental employment status and psychosocial adjustment among adolescents and their parents and (b) whether this link differed by families' socioeconomic status or receipt of government subsidies. Results indicated that families who experienced job loss tended to report higher levels of health stress and financial stress, which in turn was associated with heightened negative affect and poorer sleep quality for both parents and adolescents. When parents work from home (WFH), families tended to have lower levels of health stress and financial stress, which in turn weakened the positive links with negative affect and sleep quality. Lower- (vs. higher-) income families experienced weaker protective effects associated with WFH arrangements. Government subsidies were associated with lower stress and better psychosocial outcomes in families experiencing job loss. Public Significance Statement: During COVID-19, families experienced stressors associated with changes in parental employment. This study shows that flexible working schedules and government subsidies during periods of heightened family stress may serve as catalysts for family resilience, as they were associated with less impairment to family functioning. Clinicians should work closely with social workers to help increase patient literacy on available supports, especially for families whose circumstances are compounded by financial hardships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

COVID-19 changed the landscape of employment and financial security in the USA, contributing to multi-systemic disruptions in family life. Using dyadic, daily-diary parent–adolescent data from a nationwide American sample (18,415 daily assessments; 29 days: 4/8/2020–4/21/2020 and 5/18/2020–6/1/2020; N = 635 parent–adolescent dyads), this intensive longitudinal study investigated how COVID-19-related job loss and working-from-home (WFH) arrangements influenced parents' and children's daily affect indirectly through family functioning (i.e., parent–adolescent conflict, inter-adult conflict, and parental warmth) and whether these links varied by family socioeconomic status (SES). Parental employment status was linked to these family relational dynamics, which were then connected to parents' and adolescents' daily affect. Although SES did not moderate these links, low-income families were more likely to experience job loss, parent–adolescent conflict, and inter-adult conflict and less likely to WFH than higher-income families. As inter-relations within the family are a malleable point for intervention, clinicians working with families recovering from the fiscal impact of the COVID-19 pandemic are encouraged to use approaches that strengthen family relationships, especially between adolescents and their parents. Unemployment subsidies are discussed as a means to support families struggling with job loss, and organizations are urged to consider the benefits of WFH on employee health and work-life balance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

COVID-19 has presented threats to adolescents' psychosocial well-being, especially for those from economically disadvantaged backgrounds. This longitudinal study aimed to identify which social (i.e., family conflict, parental social support, peer social support), emotional (i.e., COVID-19 health-related stress), and physical (i.e., sleep quality, food security) factors influence adolescents' same- and next-day affect and misconduct and whether these factors functioned differently by adolescents' economic status. Daily-diary approaches were used to collect 12,033 assessments over 29 days from a nationwide sample of American adolescents (n =546; Mage = 15.0; 40% male; 43% Black, 37% White, 10% Latinx, 8% Asian American, and 3% Native American; 61% low-income) at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Peer support, parent support, and sleep quality operated as promotive factors, whereas parent-child conflict and COVID-19 health-related stress operated as risk factors. Although these links were consistent for adolescents irrespective of economic status, low-income adolescents experienced more conflict with parents, more COVID-19 health-related stress, less peer support, and lower sleep quality than higher-income adolescents. Food insecurity was connected to decreased same- and next-day negative affect for low-income adolescents only. Low-income adolescents also displayed greater negative affect in response to increased daily health-related stress relative to higher-income adolescents. These results highlight the role of proximal processes in shaping adolescent adjustment and delineate key factors influencing youth psychosocial well-being in the context of COVID-19. By understanding adolescents' responses to stressors at the onset of the pandemic, practitioners and healthcare providers can make evidence-based decisions regarding clinical treatment and intervention planning for youth most at risk for developmental maladjustment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The intended purpose of exclusionary discipline is to improve the learning environment by removing disruptive students; however, emerging evidence has suggested that these practices may have the opposite effect. Exclusionary discipline--especially policies that use suspensions as punishment for minor, developmentally normative behavioral infractions--is a known threat to suspended students' academic achievement, but few have examined whether and how these suspensions may vicariously affect nonsuspended classmates' academic achievement. This article uses a two-study approach to examine the mechanisms linking suspensions for minor infractions and educational outcomes in science (N-student = 558; N-classroom = 41; Mage = 12.83; age range = 10-16; 40% Black, 55% White, 5% other race; 51% girls; 62% eligible for free/reduced-priced lunch) and math (N-student = 1,302; N-classroom = 64; Mage = 13.00; age range = 10-16; 41% Black, 53% White, 6% other race; 50% girls; 64% eligible for free/reduced-priced lunch) classrooms among both suspended and nonsuspended students. Results showed that students who received a suspension for a minor infraction were more likely to have poorer academic achievement in both studies. In classrooms where suspensions for minor infractions were used more frequently, students had lower academic achievement, with student engagement partially mediating this relation. These results add to a growing body of school discipline literature that advocates for replacing exclusionary discipline with more developmentally responsive policies and practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: This intensive longitudinal study investigated 1) the extent to which engaging in social distancing predicted adolescents' same- and next-day stress and positive affect and 2) whether COVID-19-related knowledge and exercise moderated these links during statewide stay-at-home orders that mandated schools and nonessential businesses to close during the coronavirus pandemic. METHODS: Over the course of 28 days at the onset of the COV1D-19 pandemic, a nationwide sample of 349 adolescents (Mean age = 15.0; 40% male; 44% Black, 39% White. 9% Lat-inx, 6% Asian American, 2% Native American) completed daily surveys about their social distancing behaviors, knowledge about the coronavirus, and exercise habits. Analysis was conducted on a total of 9372 assessments using longitudinal multilevel modeling approaches. RESULTS: Daily engagement in social distancing predicted increases in adolescents' stress and decreases in their positive affect. Practical knowledge about COV1D-19 and daily exercise moderated these links. Specifically, practical knowledge and exercise weakened the positive link between social distancing and stress as well as the negative link between social distancing and positive affect. CONCLUSIONS: Adolescents' practical knowledge and exercise have the potential to buffer against the adverse effects of social distancing on stress and positive affect. However, it is critical for health care providers to recognize that youth are experiencing significant stress due to the disruption of devel-opmentally normal patterns of social interaction. Pediatricians should focus on explaining the rationale behind social distancing while encouraging exercise as an adaptive coping mechanism that has benefits for psychological well-being. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Experts have sought ways to explore emotional aspects of teachers' professional identities. Through a mixed method design, this study investigated teachers' professional identities through one component of teaching—emotional labor, or the way in which employees display or conceal their emotions to achieve workplace goals. 468 K-12 teachers in 22 U.S. schools completed The Emotional Labor of Teaching Scale and described their surface acting, deep acting, and perceived emotional display rules through open-ended questioning. Findings revealed that 100% of participants engaged in emotional labor. Second, schools rarely communicated emotional display rules explicitly. Finally, when teachers' feelings conflicted with their image of the ideal teacher, participants admitted "playing the role" by pretending to be warm and caring teachers. Implications are relevant for teacher preparation, supervision, enrichment, and retention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]