Developmental Psychology

Self-confidence in Black children

Mamie Clark & Kenneth Clark

Clark and Clark were married African American psychologists, most famous for conducting doll experiments. They showed young children two dolls, one White with yellow hair, one Brown with black hair. Both Black and White children preferred the White doll and rated it more positively when asked questions such as “which one is the nice doll?" "which one is the bad doll?" "which one has a nice colour?" which one would you rather play with?”. This was evidence that African American children, especially from segregated schools, had internalised racism, a sense of inferiority, and a lack of self-esteem which affected child’s ability to learn. The studies were used as evidence in the US Supreme Court to desegregate schools, in which they also testified.

Clark and Clark (1947), Racial Identification and PreferenceLink opens in a new window (NB this paper uses terminology which is innapropriate by today's standard)

Video: Landmark Cases Brown v. Board of Education (1954)Link opens in a new window

A more recent replication of the doll experiments: Sturdivant (2021). Racial Awareness and the Politics in PlayLink opens in a new window

Video: Re-examining the baby doll study and its impactLink opens in a new window

BPS blog post: Fulfilling Black Children's Lives - Dr Mamie Phipps ClarkLink opens in a new window

Attachment theory

Ubuntu philosophy

Ubuntu is a concept from the Bantu people in Central, Southern, and Southeastern Africa. Though difficult to define, it translates to "I am because you are" or "I am because we are". Ubuntu claims that we can't fully be a person without other people, or "umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu," "a person is a person through other people". Through our relationships with others, we learn how to be human. Ubuntu became popular especially in South Africa at the end of aparteid, with Archbishop Desmond Tutu stating, "a person with Ubuntu is open and available to others, affirming of others, does not feel threatened that others are able and good, for he or she has a proper self-assurance that comes from knowing that he or she belongs in a greater whole and is diminished when others are humiliated or diminished, when others are tortured or oppressed". This clearly has parallels with a securely attached individual, and although both research on attachment and Ubuntu philosophy stem from very different places, it demonstrates the cultural universality of these concepts.

Video: What we can learn from the African philosophy of UbuntuLink opens in a new window

Ethnicity, collectivism, and country or origin

In this study, attachment was examined in participants from over 50 country of origins, and in terms of religious affiliation, ethnicity, individualism/collectivism, and acculturation, finding that attachment patterns varied on each of these factors, and is not just a simple individualist/collectivist cultural divide.

Agishtein and Brumbaugh (2013). Cultural variation in adult attachment: The impact of ethnicity, collectivism, and country of originLink opens in a new window

Sense of Self

Bame Augustine Nsamenang

Nsamenang was a Cameroonian psychologist who developed a theory on the development of the self. His theory was that in Africa, human are socialised by local and traditional family culture. This led to a sense of self built on obedience and social responsibility. He also noted problems with comparing Africans' developmental targets with Western psychology standards.

Nsamenang's seven stages of selfhood are: new-born, social priming, social apprenticing, social entrée, social internment, adulthood, and old age and death.

These were then further grouped into three phases: a spiritual selfhood (from conception to naming); a social or experiential selfhood in the community, and an ancestral selfhood which after biological death.

Nsamenang (2008), Culture and human developmentLink opens in a new window

Bame Augustine Nsamenang: an extraordinary thinker in global psychologyLink opens in a new window

Language research in diverse populations

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Child development research in diverse populations

This documentary highlighted how black children were disproportionately labelled 'educationally subnormal', based on biased IQ tests. This practice still affects people today, and EPs should be aware of the trauma it can cause

Subnormal: A British Scandal

"Gus John, who arrived from Trinidad as a Dominican novitiate to become a priest. Almost immediately he was contacted by some black parents worried about the schooling of their children. Together with several other educators, John quickly realised that the system was not just inept, but actually rigged against black children.

At the same time, celebrity psychologists Hans Eysenck and Arthur Jensen were propounding theories that black people were genetically less intelligent than white people. These theories infiltrated teacher training and found their way into schools. IQ tests were then based on these theories with the odds horrendously stacked against children from the West Indies.

This one-hour video explores the role of IQ testing in U.K schools.

BBC iPlayer - Subnormal: A British Scandal

learn more on the link below

https://www.georgepadmoreinstitute.org/collections/the-black-education-movement-1965-1988

Below is a follow up article

Ajewole, S. (2023). A Critical Review of Educational Psychologist Engagement with the Black Community: A Diverse Group Within a Local United Kingdom Community Context. Educational Psychology Research and Practice, 9(1), 1-13.Link opens in a new window

Hidden Histories

Bussing in England during the 1960s and 1980s. Bussing was a policy that involved transporting ethnic minority children out of their local schools and into schools with fewer ethnic minority students. This policy was motivated by a combination of white backlash and a desire to assimilate immigrant children into British society.

^{picture source: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leeds-38689839}

Essential Reading

• Esteves, O. (2018). Babylon by Bus? The dispersal of immigrant children in England, race and urban space (1960s–1980s). Paedagogica Historica, 54(6), 750-765.

  https://doi.org/10.1080/00309230.2018.1521451

• BBC webpage on Southall bussing here 
• Six-minute video by British Pathé on Southall and Bradford bussing here
• Dhillon, P. (2023). The Shoulders We Stand On: How Black and Brown people fought for change in the United Kingdom. Hachette UK.