Margaret Beale Spencer
Margaret Beale Spencer is an American psychologist whose work centers on the effects of ethnicity, gender, and race on youth and adolescent development. She currently serves as the Marshall Field IV Professor of Urban Education in the Department of Comparative Human Development at the University of Chicago.[1] Dr. Spencer's career spans more than 30 years and consists of over 115 published articles and chapters, stemming from work funded by over two-dozen foundations and federal agencies.[2]
Education and career
Margaret Beale Spencer completed a five-year Bachelor of Science (BS) in pharmacy at Temple University's School of Pharmacy, and completed post-degree clinical requirements for certification and pharmacy licensure.[3] She received her master's degree from the University of Kansas, where she worked with developmental psychologist Frances Degen Horowitz.[3][4] She went on to receive her PhD in Child and Developmental Psychology from the University of Chicago in 1976.[4][5]
She taught in both the psychology and education departments at Emory University before joining the faculty at the University of Pennsylvania, where she directed the W. E. B. Du Bois Collective Research Institute as well as the Center for Health Achievement Neighborhood Growth and Ethnic Studies (CHANGES).[2][4]
Since 2009, she has served as the Marshall Field IV Professor of Urban Education in the Department of Comparative Human Development at the University of Chicago.[5]
Other positions
- Senior Advisor on the American Psychological Association's "Task Force Report on Resilience and Strength in African American Children and Adolescents."[6]
- Board Member and Trustee of the Foundation for Child Development.[2]
- Member of the Editorial Advisory Board for the Journal of Black Psychology.[7]
Research
Master's thesis
Spencer master's thesis, titled "Effects of Systematic Social and Token Reinforcement on the Modification of Racial and Color Concept Attitudes in Black and in White Preschool Children," was inspired by the doll studies of Kenneth and Mamie Clark and investigated whether children's racial beliefs and preferences could be modified by incentives.[4]
The study included 24 Black and 24 White children between the ages of 3–5, who all attended a
Spencer concluded that the children had learned implicit biases during their childhood, but that the initial preference towards White stimulus could be reversed with incentives, suggesting that initial bias was more related to learned attitudes than an internalized self-hatred as suggested by the Clarks.[4]
PhD Dissertation
Spencer's PhD dissertation was a continuation of her master's degree work looking at racial preferences among children, but with a focus on the confidence and self-esteem of Black children that exhibited biases towards White stimuli.[4]
Her dissertation studied 130 Black children from six preschools in the
PVEST Theory
Built off of
The PVEST Theory breaks identity formation into the following five components:[11]
- Net Vulnerability level: history of prior experiences and coping outcomes.
- Net stress engagement: actual experience that challenges individual's well-being.
- Reactive coping methods: employed to resolve dissonance-producing situations.
- Emergent identities: coping strategies are repeated, become stable, and combine with self-appraisal to form identity.
- Life-stage, specific coping outcomes: identity affects future behavior and outcomes (self-esteem, achievement, health, etc.).
The APA Task Force on Resilience and Strength in Black Children and Adolescents describes Spencer's PVEST theory as "a seminal and important contribution to the study of resilience among African American children and youth" (p. 34) for being one of the only theories taking into account the "ecological contextual circumstances unique to youths of color in the United States" (p. 23)[9]
Acting White
In a 2008 publication titled "What does ‘acting White’ actually mean?," Margaret Beale Spencer and Vinay Harpalani addressed
Spencer and Harpalani cite data that suggests that African-American families have just as much investment in their children's academic success, and that high-achieving African-American students have higher social status than their peers, opposite to what would be presumed under the Acting White Hypothesis.[11]
Spencer and Harpalani also found conceptual problems with Ogbu and Fordham's approach, saying:
- "… the analysis presented by Fordham and Ogbu lacks a normative, developmental perspective; it fails to view African American youth as normal, developing beings who are maturing in a hostile context of racial inequity. " [p.10][11]
The article concludes that Acting White is simply one of many coping response that Black youths employ and is not responsible for academic underachievement.[11]
Awards and recognition
2005: American Psychological Association's "Award for Distinguished Contributions to Psychology in the Public Interest."[12]
2006: Awarded the Fletcher Fellowship, recognizing work that furthers the broad social goals of the U.S. Supreme Court's Brown v. Board of Education decision of 1954.[5]
2007: Inaugural Fellow of American Educational Research Association.[13]
2008: Elected as Member of National Academy of Education.[14]
2011: Society for Research in Child Development's award for "Distinguished Contributions to Cultural and Contextual Factors in Child Development."[15]
2015: Northwestern University's Honorary Doctorate "Doctor of Humane Letters."[16]
2018: American Psychological Association's
2018 American Association for the Advancement of Science Fellow.[18]
2019: American Academy of Arts and Sciences Fellow.[19]
Selected works
- 2001: Spencer, Margaret Beale; Noll, Elizabeth; Stoltzfus, Jill; Harpalani, Vinay (2001). "Identity and School Adjustment: Revisiting the "Acting White" Assumption". Educational Psychologist. 36 (1): 21–30. S2CID 9062521.
- 1999: Spencer, Margaret Beale (1999). "Social and cultural influences on school adjustment: The application of an identity-focused.". Educational Psychologist. 34 (1): 43–57. ISSN 0046-1520.
- 1994: Connell, James Patrick; Spencer, Margaret Beale; Aber, J. Lawrence (1994). "Educational Risk and Resilience in African-American Youth: Context, Self, Action, and Outcomes in School". Child Development. 65 (2): 493–506. PMID 8013236.
- 1990: Spencer, Margaret Beale; Markstrom-Adams, Carol (1990). "Identity Processes among Racial and Ethnic Minority Children in America". Child Development. 61 (2): 290. JSTOR 1131095.
- 1990: Margaret Beale Spencer; Sanford M. Dornbusch (1990). "Challenges in Studying Minority Youth". In Feldman, S. Shirley.; Elliott, Glen R. (eds.). At the threshold : the developing adolescent. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. OL 7692033M.
- 1983: Spencer, Margaret Beale (1983). "Children's cultural values and parental child rearing strategies". Developmental Review. 3 (4): 351–370. ISSN 0273-2297.
See also
- Kenneth and Mamie Clark
- William E. Cross, Jr.
- John Ogbu
References
- ^ "Margaret Beale Spencer". University of Chicago Department of Comparative Human Development. Retrieved 20 November 2013.
- ^ a b c Foundation for Child Development. "Margaret Beale Spencer, Vice Chair". Archived from the original on 3 December 2013. Retrieved 20 November 2013.
- ^ S2CID 262162348. Retrieved 18 December 2023.
- ^ a b c d e f g "A Conversation with Margaret Beale Spencer". UChicago Alumni & Friends. Archived from the original on 2 December 2013. Retrieved 20 November 2013.
- ^ a b c "Margaret Beale Spencer". University of Chicago Committee on Education. Archived from the original on 2013-12-02. Retrieved 21 November 2013.
- ^ "Task Force Report on Resilience and Strength in African American Children and Adolescents". American Psychological Association. Retrieved 23 November 2013.
- ^ "Journal of Black Psychology Editorial Board". Journal of Black Psychology. Retrieved 23 November 2013.
- doi:10.1037/h0035088.
- ^ a b c "Resilience in African American children And Adolescents: A Vision for Optimal Development" (PDF). APA Task Force on Resilience and Strength in Black Children and Adolescents. 2008. Retrieved 21 November 2013.
- S2CID 10248622.
- ^ a b c d e Spencer, Margaret B.; Vinay Harpalani (2006). Ogbu, John (ed.). "What does "acting White" actually mean?: Racial identity, adolescent development, and academic achievement among African American youth". Minority Status, Collective Identity and Schooling. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.
- ^ "Award for Distinguished Contributions to Psychology in the Public Interest". American Psychological Association. Retrieved 22 November 2013.
- S2CID 220473732. Retrieved 23 November 2013.
- ^ "Members of the National Academy of Education". National Academy of Education. Archived from the original on 2 December 2013. Retrieved 23 November 2013.
- ^ "SRCD Senior Distinguished Contributions Awards History". Society for Research in Child Development. Retrieved 23 November 2013.
- ^ "Margaret Beale Spencer to be conferred honorary degree northwestern university". Archived from the original on 2015-09-05.
- ^ "Award for Outstanding Lifetime Contributions to Psychology". APA. Retrieved 2 December 2018.
- ^ "Three UChicago faculty members named 2019 AAAS fellows | University of Chicago News". news.uchicago.edu. 26 November 2019. Retrieved 2022-06-13.
- ^ "2019 Fellows and International Honorary Members with their affiliations at the time of election". members.amacad.org. Archived from the original on 2020-03-02.
External links
Viewable online lectures
- Walter N. Ridley Distinguished Lecture – University of Virginia, February 23, 2009.
- Inside the Psychologist's Studio with Margaret Beale Spencer – Association for Psychological Science 24th Annual Convention, May 2012.