A significant gap remains in our understanding of the conditions under which parents’ racial socialization has consequences for adolescents’ functioning. The present study used longitudinal data to examine whether the frequency of communication between African American parents and adolescents (N = 504; 49 % female) moderates the association between parent reports of racial socialization (i.e., cultural socialization and preparation for bias) at 8th grade and adolescent reports of racial identity (perceived structural discrimination, negative public regard, success-oriented centrality) at 11th grade, and in turn, academic attitudes and perceptions. Parents’ racial socialization practices were significant predictors of multiple aspects of adolescents’ racial identity in families with high levels of communication, but they did not predict any aspects of adolescents’ racial identity in families with low levels of communication. Results highlight the importance of including family processes when examining the relations between parents’ racial socialization and adolescents’ racial identity and academic attitudes and perceptions.

Adolescent employment during high school has become the norm in the United States, but studies of associated outcomes have yielded mixed results. These discrepant findings may be partly attributable to study methods, including differences in how adolescent employment is measured and how selection factors are taken into account. The present study, based on data from the Child Development Supplement of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, aims to continue untangling these complexities by (a) examining whether the strength of theoretical predictors varies when predictors are assessed in a comprehensive model that simultaneously controls several psychological, family, and community factors; (b) determining whether the strength of predictors varies depending on how adolescent employment is measured (work status, work duration, and work intensity); and (c) assessing whether race moderates some of these relationships. Results indicate differences in how each predictor is related to each dimension of adolescent employment, as well as a moderating effect of race on the relationship between educational expectations and number of hours adolescents worked each week.

How does one progress from protégé to professional to master? For thousands of years, it was accomplished by apprenticeship to a master, on a one-to-one or one-to-few basis. The advent of the industrial era necessitated training more people at a time than this model could accommodate; hence, the modern educational era. The traditional classroom model and coaching became standard. The disadvantage of this model, however, is that the nuance of the “master” is lost because it can only develop over a long-term, individual, guided, mentoring relationship. Although our institutions of higher learning successfully develop accomplished professionals with their three-tiered model of teaching, service, and research, these authors propose moving educators closer to the “master” level of skill by reincorporating the individual mentorship model in conjunction with small cohort coaching.

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