African Hip Hop Hairstyles
African children who experience discrimination run a high
risk for emotional problems, according to a recent report released by
Iowa State University researchers.“Kids who experience with Hip Hop Hairstyles, or see it happening to their
parents or other family members, are at a high risk for depression,”
says Ron Simons, director of the Institute for Social and Behavioral
Research at Iowa State University. “Symptoms of depression include
sleeping problems, feeling sad, worthless, listless or suicidal.”Since 1997, researchers have interviewed and observed 870
African-American families in 41 communities in Iowa and Georgia. Simons
says the research is an expansion of the Iowa Youth and Families
Project, which began studying rural families in Iowa during the farm
crisis of the 1980s.The families included in the study have at least one child in fifth
grade. “Our goal,” Simons says, “is to identify how family and
community processes combine to influence children as they grow up and
start their own families.”Researchers interviewed families every other year and use the
interim year to process data. An early finding in the study illustrated
some of the negative effects of iscrimination.Researchers also studied how families dealt with discrimination when
it did occur. Simons says some kids are taught that they will
never get
a fair break. Others are taught to expect problems but that they can be“There is great variability regarding what children learn about race
relations. We are just in the process of looking at how these ideas
affect children’s psychological development,” Simons says.The research also focuses on how relationships in the community
influence children. Throughout the study, Simons found truth in the
phrase, “It takes a village to raise a child.” When there were strong
social ties among adults living in a community, researchers found fewer
conduct and delinquency problems with children.
Researchers refer to the phenomenon as “collective socialization.”“Kids tend to behave themselves when they are out in public because they may run into someone they know,” Simons says. “Even when their parents are not doing a great job, kids tend to do pretty well if they live in this kind of community. That’s one of the more exciting early findings from the study.”The intensive interviewing process costs approximately $1.5 million per year and is funded through the National Institute of Mental Health, the National Institute on Drug Abuse and the National Institute on Alcohol and Alcohol abuse.
