Police Stops and School Engagement: Examining Cultural Socialization From Parents and Schools as Protective Factors Among African American Adolescents

Abstract

Police stops often perpetuate racial disparities in academic outcomes, yet few studies have examined factors that mitigate these negative consequences. Using two longitudinal studies (Study 1: n = 483, M-age = 12.88, 53% males; Study 2: n = 131, M-age = 15.11, 34% males), this article tests whether parental and school cultural socialization reduced the negative associations between police stops and youth’s school engagement. Results showed that youth with police encounters reported lower school engagement. Parental cultural socialization conferred protection in one study, while school cultural socialization was a protective factor in both studies. The implications of this work stand to benefit those working to reduce the negative links between policing and African American youth’s school engagement.

Measuring everyday experiences with the police in the Netherlands: An experience sampling pilot study

“…30% and 42%). A lack of compensation in the fear of crime study may explain the difference in compliance with our study, however adolescents were compensated for participation in at least one of the Del Toro studies (25 USD, Del Toro and Wang, 2022). Compensation is an important technique to maintain participation, but other techniques such as gamification, reminders and feedback on compliance can work to minimise attrition as well (Dejonckheere and Erbas, 2021; Kronkvist and Engström, 2020; van Berkel and Kostakos, 2021; Wrzus and Neubauer, 2022).…”

“…The number of personal experiences was fairly low ( n = 27, 4%), but that is likely not unusual in the Dutch context where personal interactions with citizens are given relatively lower priority. To compare, a study of police contact among African American youth in the United States suggested that 9% of the sample reported being personally stopped by the police during a 14-day period (Del Toro and Wang, 2022). What this suggests is that some individuals may be more likely to get their information about police treatment and behaviour in daily life from media sources compared to personal encounters.…”

“…While the use of experience sampling techniques is growing in other fields (Wrzus and Neubauer, 2022), its use in criminology and particularly policing studies, is still relatively rare (Borah et al, 2021; Del Toro and Wang, 2022; Del Toro et al, 2022; Kronkvist and Engström, 2020; Solymosi et al, 2021). Research on aggression using experience sampling techniques show that perceived rejection and anger were associated with momentary aggression (e.g.…”

“…To our knowledge, the only two studies have used ES to measure contact with police and its impact on momentary outcomes among a non-probability sample of adolescents in the United States (Del Toro and Wang, 2022; Del Toro et al, 2022). For example, in Del Toro et al (2022), two waves of data collection took place in 2019 and 2020, which amounted to 35 days total.…”

“…The authors found that police stops were associated with greater psychological stress and school disengagement the next day. Del Toro and Wang (2022) used a non-probability sample of 131 African American adolescents from seven middle and high schools in the United States. Initially, 348 adolescents participating in other longitudinal studies were invited to participate, whereby 50% ( n = 175) agreed to take part, and 131 actually participated.…”