Amy Heberle
Child and family research group
Our lab is interested in studying the influence of social structures such as class and racial structures on young children’s mental health and development. We are interested in how children think about their and others’ social identities, how they understand the function of these identities within social structures, and how others (parents, teachers, and peers) socialize children with respect to their identities. All of these questions are motivated by an interest in the downstream impacts of identity beliefs and socialization on children’s emotional and social functioning. Recent work in the lab has focused on critical consciousness as a protective factor for children who are socially marginalized. Other recent work examines anti-racist and anti-classist parental socialization of young children with racial and/or class privilege.