Cynthia García Coll
Biographic Data
| ID | 83504 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Cynthia García Coll |
| GIVEN NAMES | Cynthia García |
| FAMILY NAME | Coll |
| SIGNATURE | COLL C G |
| AFFILIATIONS | Brown University |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 45 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 526 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 43 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 2 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1984 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 11 |
The Cambridge Handbook of Ethnic and Racial Discrimination and Youth Development
How is ethnic and racial discrimination impacting our young people? Scholars around the world have found that discriminatory interactions of this nature have detrimental impacts on youth and their development. In this handbook, the world's leading experts on this topic examine the current state of the science, presenting current research and tracing foundational theories, empirical findings, multilevel methods, and intervention strategies for chi…
Where Do We Come From…Where are We Heading? Reflections on the Personal, the Systemic, and the Political
Using my personal story, I reflect on the history of the field of child development from the 1970's to the present. I recount how far have we come...but also, how far we still have to go on creating a literature where contextual forces, such as racism and other sources of oppression are considered at the core rather than the perifery of research with minoritized BILPOC (Black, Indigenous, Latinx, People of Color) families and children. As scholar…
Family Stressors and Resources as Social Determinants of Health among Caregivers and Young Children
Life course-informed theories of development suggest it is important to integrate information about positive and negative aspects of the social environment into studies of child and parental wellbeing, including both stressors that compromise health and resources that promote well-being. We recruited a sample of 169 pairs of caregivers and young children (birth to 5 years) from a community health clinic and administered survey questions to assess…
Globalization, Culture, and Development: Are We Ready for a Paradigm Shift
Education and developmental competencies of ethnic minority children: Recent theoretical and methodological advances
A person-centered exploration of children of immigrants’ social experiences and their school-based well-being
This study aimed to explore commonalities among discrimination, stereotyping, and peer-related social experiences of children of immigrants, and to see if these experiences might relate to children’s school-based well-being. Two age-based cohorts of 294 children and their immigrant parents from Portugal, the Dominican Republic, and Cambodia were interviewed. Person-centered analyses resulted in four unique clusters of children’s social experience…
Social Position Variables of Specific Learning Disabilities: A National Perspective
This article examined the association between social position variables (i.e., Hispanic, health insurance coverage, and poverty rates) on the prevalence of specific learning disabilities (SLD) in students between 3 and 21 years of age. We used the 2012 to 2013 U.S. population data from the U.S. Department of Education, Office of Special Education Program, and the American Community Survey for the 50 states, Puerto Rico, and Washington, D.C. Resul…
Factors related to attitudes toward diversity in Australia, Malaysia, and Puerto Rico
In this study, we tested social identity complexity theory (Roccas & Brewer, 2002) in relation to attitudes toward diversity and the associated variables of patriotism, nationalism, religiosity, aggression, and sense of self (well-being) in a cross-cultural study of 398 Malaysian, 239 Australian, and 201 Puerto Rican students. Puerto Ricans reported the most positive attitudes toward diversity, followed by Australians, and finally Malaysians. For…
Bronfenbrenner’s Bioecological Theory Revision: Moving Culture From the Macro Into the Micro
Bronfenbrenner’s bioecological theory of human development is one of the most widely known theoretical frameworks in human development. In spite of its popularity, the notion of culture within the macrosystem, as a separate entity of everyday practices and therefore microsystems, is problematic. Using the theoretical and empirical work of Rogoff and Weisner, and influenced as they are by Vygotsky’s sociocultural perspective, we reconceptualize Br…
Latinos in Rural, New Immigrant Destinations: A Modification of the Integrative Model of Child Development
Understanding the U.S. Immigrant Paradox in Childhood and Adolescence
The immigrant paradox in childhood and adolescence is a population-level phenomenon wherein U.S.-born youth (or more highly acculturated immigrants) have less optimal developmental outcomes than newcomer immigrant youth. These patterns, which hold true after accounting for the generally lower income and parent education levels among first-generation immigrant families, have existed for decades in the United States. In this article, we address thi…
The Dynamics of Age and Sex in the Development of Mother–Infant Vocal Communication Between 3 and 11 Months
We followed the nondistressed vocalization dynamics of 30 mother–infant dyads observed in a naturalistic setting using multiple time points between 3 and 11 months to identify subtle relationships between age, sex and maternal behavior ending by 1 year of age with diverging trajectories of nondistressed vocalization. We observed no mean differences between boys and girls in frequency or duration of nondistressed vocalizations at any one time peri…
The Immigrant Paradox in Pregnancy: Explaining the First‐Generation Advantage for Latina Adolescents
The immigrant paradox is a population health pattern whereby later generation immigrant youth display less favorable outcomes when compared to first‐generation co‐ethnic peers. This study examines the role of number of sex partners in explaining the immigrant paradox in pregnancy among Latina adolescents. This secondary analysis utilized a nationally representative sample of L atinas in the N ational L ongitudinal S tudy of A dolescent H ealth. A…
Realizing the Potential of Immigrant Youth
The well-being and productivity of immigrant youth has become one of the most important global issues of our times as a result of mass migration and resettlement. In this unique volume, leading scholars from multiple nations and disciplines provide a state-of-the-art overview of contemporary research on immigrant youth and delineate the most promising future directions for research on their success, suggesting implications for policy and interven…
Sexing the baby: Part 2 applying dynamic systems theory to the emergences of sex-related differences in infants and toddlers
Sexing the baby: Part 1 - What do we really know about sex differentiation in the first three years of life
The immigrant paradox in children and adolescents: Is becoming American a developmental risk
The Immigrant Paradox in Sexual Risk Behavior Among Latino Adolescents: Impact of Immigrant Generation and Gender
This article contributes new evidence on the associations among immigrant generation, gender, and sexual risk behavior among Latino adolescents in the United States. Longitudinal data from 3,272 Latino adolescents (grades 7–12) who participated in the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health) were examined for evidence of the immigrant paradox in sex risk behaviors. Compared to more acculturated counterparts, first generation …
Being bicultural: A mixed-methods study of adolescents' implicitly and explicitly measured multiethnic identities
Understanding how ethnic identities develop in adolescence is currently limited by a reliance on self-report paper-and-pencil measures. This mixed-methods study presents a novel response time measure, the Multiethnic Identities Processing Task (MIPT), to quantify bicultural adolescents' implicit identifications with ethnic and racial identity labels. Eighty-four adolescents (age 14-21 years) of diverse ethnic and racial backgrounds self-identifie…
Learning from Latinos: Contexts, families, and child development in motion
Two generations ago, Latino children and families were often defined as disadvantaged, even "culturally deprived," by psychologists, social scientists, and pediatric researchers. Since then, empirical work from several disciplines has yielded remarkable discoveries regarding the strengths of Latino families and resulting benefits for children. Theoretical advances illuminate how variation in the child's culturally bounded context or developmental…
Racism and Child Health: A Review of the Literature and Future Directions
OBJECTIVE: Racism is a mechanism through which racial/ethnic disparities occur in child health. To assess the present state of research into the effects of racism on child health, a review of the literature was undertaken. METHODS: A MEDLINE review of the literature was conducted between October and November 2007. Studies reporting on empirical research relating to racism or racial discrimination as a predictor or contributor to a child health ou…
Perceptions of Racism in Children and Youth (PRaCY): Properties of a Self-Report Instrument for Research on Children's Health and Development
Experiences of racial discrimination have been demonstrated to be related to racial and ethnic disparities in mental and physical health and healthcare. There has been little study, however, of the relationship between racism and health in children, and few psychometrically valid and reliable instruments to measure Perceptions of Racism in Children and Youth (PRaCY) exist. This paper reports on the development and testing of such an instrument, t…
Psychological and demographic correlates of early academic skill development among American Indian and Alaska Native youth: A growth modeling study
Research regarding the development of early academic skills among American Indian and Alaska Native (AIAN) students has been very limited to date. Using a nationally representative sample of AIAN, Hispanic, African American, and White children at school entry, the authors used latent growth models to estimate the associations among poverty, low parental education, living in a rural location, as well as child attitudes toward learning and internal…
Emerging ethnic identity and interethnic group social preferences in middle childhood: Findings from the Children of Immigrants Development in Context (CIDC) study
This study characterizes several aspects of emerging ethnic identity in childhood and its associations with interethnic group social preferences. Understanding these processes is important, as early interethnic group social practices may form a foundation for later interethnic group attitudes and behaviors in adolescence. Children of Cambodian, Dominican, and Portuguese heritage (aged 6—12 years) consistently and accurately identified with labels…
The Multiple Contexts of Middle Childhood
During middle childhood, children begin to navigate their own ways through societal structures, forming ideas about their individual talents and aspirations for the future. The ability to forge a positive pathway can have major implications for their success as adults. The pathways to success, however, may differ for children of diverse cultural, racial, ethnic, and national backgrounds. This article provides a conceptual model of child developme…
The Home Environments of Children in the United States Part I: Variations by Age, Ethnicity, and Poverty Status
Although measures of the home environment have gained wide acceptance in the child development literature, what constitutes the “average” or “typical” home environment in the United States, and how this differs across ethnic groups and poverty status is not known. Item‐level data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth on four age‐related versions of the Home Observation for Measurement of the Environment–Short Form (HOME‐SF) from five bie…
Discrimination and Puerto Rican children's and adolescents' mental health
Two studies of Puerto Rican youths' development on the U.S. mainland examined the consequences of perceived racial/ethnic discrimination on mental health. In Study I, children were found to have a low likelihood of perceiving discrimination, whereas in Study 2, nearly half of the adolescent sample reported perceiving racial/ethnic discrimination. Although both groups scored high on multiple indicators of mental health, perceiving discrimination a…
Parental Involvement in Children's Education: Lessons from Three Immigrant Groups
This study explores immigrant group and individual differences within groups in parental reports of involvement in their children's education as a function of both sociodemographic and cultural variables. Design. Over 300 parents from three different immigrant groups - Portuguese, Dominican and Cambodian - were interviewed when their children were in either second or fifth grade. Results. Language comfort and immigrant group membership were the m…
Perceptions of Racism in Children and Youth (PRaCY): Properties of a Self-Report Instrument for Research on Children's Health and Development
Experiences of racial discrimination have been demonstrated to be related to racial and ethnic disparities in mental and physical health and healthcare. There has been little study, however, of the relationship between racism and health in children, and few psychometrically valid and reliable instruments to measure Perceptions of Racism in Children and Youth (PRaCY) exist. This paper reports on the development and testing of such an instrument, t…
Sexing the baby: Part 1 - What do we really know about sex differentiation in the first three years of life
Sexing the baby: Part 2 applying dynamic systems theory to the emergences of sex-related differences in infants and toddlers
Emerging ethnic identity and interethnic group social preferences in middle childhood: Findings from the Children of Immigrants Development in Context (CIDC) study
This study characterizes several aspects of emerging ethnic identity in childhood and its associations with interethnic group social preferences. Understanding these processes is important, as early interethnic group social practices may form a foundation for later interethnic group attitudes and behaviors in adolescence. Children of Cambodian, Dominican, and Portuguese heritage (aged 6—12 years) consistently and accurately identified with labels…
The Multiple Contexts of Middle Childhood
During middle childhood, children begin to navigate their own ways through societal structures, forming ideas about their individual talents and aspirations for the future. The ability to forge a positive pathway can have major implications for their success as adults. The pathways to success, however, may differ for children of diverse cultural, racial, ethnic, and national backgrounds. This article provides a conceptual model of child developme…
Learning from Latinos: Contexts, families, and child development in motion
Two generations ago, Latino children and families were often defined as disadvantaged, even "culturally deprived," by psychologists, social scientists, and pediatric researchers. Since then, empirical work from several disciplines has yielded remarkable discoveries regarding the strengths of Latino families and resulting benefits for children. Theoretical advances illuminate how variation in the child's culturally bounded context or developmental…
The Immigrant Paradox in Sexual Risk Behavior Among Latino Adolescents: Impact of Immigrant Generation and Gender
This article contributes new evidence on the associations among immigrant generation, gender, and sexual risk behavior among Latino adolescents in the United States. Longitudinal data from 3,272 Latino adolescents (grades 7–12) who participated in the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health) were examined for evidence of the immigrant paradox in sex risk behaviors. Compared to more acculturated counterparts, first generation …
Being bicultural: A mixed-methods study of adolescents' implicitly and explicitly measured multiethnic identities
Understanding how ethnic identities develop in adolescence is currently limited by a reliance on self-report paper-and-pencil measures. This mixed-methods study presents a novel response time measure, the Multiethnic Identities Processing Task (MIPT), to quantify bicultural adolescents' implicit identifications with ethnic and racial identity labels. Eighty-four adolescents (age 14-21 years) of diverse ethnic and racial backgrounds self-identifie…
The Experiences of Women in Prison: Implications for Services and Prevention
Women in prison represent a neglected population. The facilities and the services offered to female inmates are based primarily on models derived from male inmates. The need for this approach to change is increasingly recognized because the number of women in the correctional system is increasing at an alarming rate, the criminal profile of female inmates is distinct, and independently because the racial and ethnic composition of the female priso…
The developmental status and adaptive behavior of homeless and low-income housed infants and toddlers
OBJECTIVES: This study describes the development status of 127 homeless and 91 low-income housed infants and toddlers. METHODS: The Bayley Scales of Infant Development and the Vineland Screener were used to gather data. RESULTS: There were no differences between homeless and low-income housed children. However, younger children in both groups performed better than the older children on most summary scores. CONCLUSIONS: Homeless and low-income hou…
Puerto Rican Early Adolescents' Self-Esteem Patterns
This study examines self-esteem as a multidimensional construct in 1 Latino subgroup, Puerto Rican girls and boys during early adolescence, using Harter's (1985b) Self-Perception Profile for Children. The results show that in its English and Spanish versions-the latter developed by the present research team-the Self-Perception Profile for Children has adequate reliability for use with 13- to 14-year-old Puerto Rican youth living on the mainland. …
The Immigrant Paradox in Pregnancy: Explaining the First‐Generation Advantage for Latina Adolescents
The immigrant paradox is a population health pattern whereby later generation immigrant youth display less favorable outcomes when compared to first‐generation co‐ethnic peers. This study examines the role of number of sex partners in explaining the immigrant paradox in pregnancy among Latina adolescents. This secondary analysis utilized a nationally representative sample of L atinas in the N ational L ongitudinal S tudy of A dolescent H ealth. A…
Psychological and demographic correlates of early academic skill development among American Indian and Alaska Native youth: A growth modeling study
Research regarding the development of early academic skills among American Indian and Alaska Native (AIAN) students has been very limited to date. Using a nationally representative sample of AIAN, Hispanic, African American, and White children at school entry, the authors used latent growth models to estimate the associations among poverty, low parental education, living in a rural location, as well as child attitudes toward learning and internal…
The Dual-Focus Approach to Creating Bilingual Measures
The dual-focus approach to creating bilingual research protocols requires a bilingual/bicultural research team, including indigenous researchers from the cultures being studied. The presence of indigenous researchers as full and equal members of the research team can guard against an unexamined exportation of ideas and methods developed in one culture to other cultural/linguistic communities. The team develops the research plan and a research pro…
Stereotyped perceptions of adolescents' health risk behaviors
Are youths particularly youths of color engaged in high levels of health risk behaviors and is public perception regarding these behaviors accurate? In answer to the 1st question 2 analytic samples were drawn: (a) 14-15-year-old 9th graders (N = 94) from the Puerto Rican Adolescent study conducted in the greater Boston area and (b) 14-15-year-old 9th graders (N = 876) from the Massachusetts 1995 Youth Risk Behavior (YRB) survey. The samples were …
Factors related to attitudes toward diversity in Australia, Malaysia, and Puerto Rico
In this study, we tested social identity complexity theory (Roccas & Brewer, 2002) in relation to attitudes toward diversity and the associated variables of patriotism, nationalism, religiosity, aggression, and sense of self (well-being) in a cross-cultural study of 398 Malaysian, 239 Australian, and 201 Puerto Rican students. Puerto Ricans reported the most positive attitudes toward diversity, followed by Australians, and finally Malaysians. For…
The immigrant paradox in children and adolescents: Is becoming American a developmental risk
Navajo Infancy: An Ethological Study of Child Development
Maternal perceptions of the sleep patterns of premature infants at seven months corrected age compared to full-term infants
It has been reported that 83%–87% of full-term infants regularly sleep through the night (from midnight to 5 a.m.) by 6 months of age, but there is little information about the sleep patterns of premature infants. The purpose of the current study was to identify maternal perceptions of the sleep patterns of premature infants. Parents of 32 premature infants with birth weight below 1,750 gm and of 13 full-term infants completed a 24-hour sleep rec…
Puerto Rican Women and Children
Children and Poverty: Issues in Contemporary Research
The state-of-the-art research in this volume is based on complex, multidimensional conceptions of poverty. Current research goes beyond description to emphasize analysis of processes by which effects occur and variations in effects associated with race, gender, and ethnicity. Child care, school, neighborhood, and community are studied as well as family contexts. The child outcomes investigated include both intellectual development and socioemotio…
An Integrative Model for the Study of Developmental Competencies in Minority Children
Gontran Lamberty, Renee Jenkins, Harriet Pipes McAdoo, Keith Crnic, Barbara Hanna Wasik, , An Integrative Model for the Study of Developmental Competencies in Minority Children, Child Development, Vol. 67, No. 5 (Oct., 1996), pp. 1891-1914
Poverty and Behavior: The Case for Multiple Methods and Levels of Analysis
The Experiences of Women in Prison: Implications for Services and Prevention
Women in prison represent a neglected population. The facilities and the services offered to female inmates are based primarily on models derived from male inmates. The need for this approach to change is increasingly recognized because the number of women in the correctional system is increasing at an alarming rate, the criminal profile of female inmates is distinct, and independently because the racial and ethnic composition of the female priso…
The developmental status and adaptive behavior of homeless and low-income housed infants and toddlers
OBJECTIVES: This study describes the development status of 127 homeless and 91 low-income housed infants and toddlers. METHODS: The Bayley Scales of Infant Development and the Vineland Screener were used to gather data. RESULTS: There were no differences between homeless and low-income housed children. However, younger children in both groups performed better than the older children on most summary scores. CONCLUSIONS: Homeless and low-income hou…
Psychological Acculturation: Development of A New Measure for Puerto Ricans on the U.S. Mainland
Most instruments designed to measure acculturation have relied on specific cultural behaviors and preferences as primary indicators of acculturation. In contrast, feelings of belonging and emotional attachment to cultural communities have not been widely used. The Psychological Acculturation Scale (PAS) was developed to assess acculturation from a phenomenological perspective, with items pertaining to the individual’s sense of psychological attac…
Stereotyped perceptions of adolescents' health risk behaviors
Are youths particularly youths of color engaged in high levels of health risk behaviors and is public perception regarding these behaviors accurate? In answer to the 1st question 2 analytic samples were drawn: (a) 14-15-year-old 9th graders (N = 94) from the Puerto Rican Adolescent study conducted in the greater Boston area and (b) 14-15-year-old 9th graders (N = 876) from the Massachusetts 1995 Youth Risk Behavior (YRB) survey. The samples were …
Stereotyped perceptions of adolescents' health risk behaviors
Mothering against the Odds: Diverse Voices of Contemporary Mothers
The Dual-Focus Approach to Creating Bilingual Measures
The dual-focus approach to creating bilingual research protocols requires a bilingual/bicultural research team, including indigenous researchers from the cultures being studied. The presence of indigenous researchers as full and equal members of the research team can guard against an unexamined exportation of ideas and methods developed in one culture to other cultural/linguistic communities. The team develops the research plan and a research pro…
Minorities in the United States
The Color of My Skin: A Measure to Assess Children's Perceptions of Their Skin Color
The Color of My Skin is an instrument developed to assess children's internalized idea (abstraction) of the color of their skin; their satisfaction with that color; the desire, if any, to change the color of their skin; and their affect regarding their skin color. The assessment is part of a questionnaire utilized in a 3-year longitudinal study that examines psychosocial development, physical health, and behavioral adjustment of Puerto Rican chil…
Puerto Rican Early Adolescents' Self-Esteem Patterns
This study examines self-esteem as a multidimensional construct in 1 Latino subgroup, Puerto Rican girls and boys during early adolescence, using Harter's (1985b) Self-Perception Profile for Children. The results show that in its English and Spanish versions-the latter developed by the present research team-the Self-Perception Profile for Children has adequate reliability for use with 13- to 14-year-old Puerto Rican youth living on the mainland. …
The Home Environments of Children in the United States Part II: Relations with Behavioral Development through Age Thirteen
This study examined the frequency with which children were exposed to various parental actions, materials, events, and conditions as part of their home environments, and how those exposures related to their well-being. Part 1 focused on variations by age, ethnicity, and poverty status. In Part 2 of the study, relations between major aspects of the home environment (including maternal responsiveness, learning stimulation, and spanking) and develop…
The Home Environments of Children in the United States Part I: Variations by Age, Ethnicity, and Poverty Status
Although measures of the home environment have gained wide acceptance in the child development literature, what constitutes the “average” or “typical” home environment in the United States, and how this differs across ethnic groups and poverty status is not known. Item‐level data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth on four age‐related versions of the Home Observation for Measurement of the Environment–Short Form (HOME‐SF) from five bie…
Parental Involvement in Children's Education: Lessons from Three Immigrant Groups
This study explores immigrant group and individual differences within groups in parental reports of involvement in their children's education as a function of both sociodemographic and cultural variables. Design. Over 300 parents from three different immigrant groups - Portuguese, Dominican and Cambodian - were interviewed when their children were in either second or fifth grade. Results. Language comfort and immigrant group membership were the m…
Discrimination and Puerto Rican children's and adolescents' mental health
Two studies of Puerto Rican youths' development on the U.S. mainland examined the consequences of perceived racial/ethnic discrimination on mental health. In Study I, children were found to have a low likelihood of perceiving discrimination, whereas in Study 2, nearly half of the adolescent sample reported perceiving racial/ethnic discrimination. Although both groups scored high on multiple indicators of mental health, perceiving discrimination a…
The Multiple Contexts of Middle Childhood
During middle childhood, children begin to navigate their own ways through societal structures, forming ideas about their individual talents and aspirations for the future. The ability to forge a positive pathway can have major implications for their success as adults. The pathways to success, however, may differ for children of diverse cultural, racial, ethnic, and national backgrounds. This article provides a conceptual model of child developme…
Psychological and demographic correlates of early academic skill development among American Indian and Alaska Native youth: A growth modeling study
Research regarding the development of early academic skills among American Indian and Alaska Native (AIAN) students has been very limited to date. Using a nationally representative sample of AIAN, Hispanic, African American, and White children at school entry, the authors used latent growth models to estimate the associations among poverty, low parental education, living in a rural location, as well as child attitudes toward learning and internal…
Emerging ethnic identity and interethnic group social preferences in middle childhood: Findings from the Children of Immigrants Development in Context (CIDC) study
This study characterizes several aspects of emerging ethnic identity in childhood and its associations with interethnic group social preferences. Understanding these processes is important, as early interethnic group social practices may form a foundation for later interethnic group attitudes and behaviors in adolescence. Children of Cambodian, Dominican, and Portuguese heritage (aged 6—12 years) consistently and accurately identified with labels…
Racism and Child Health: A Review of the Literature and Future Directions
OBJECTIVE: Racism is a mechanism through which racial/ethnic disparities occur in child health. To assess the present state of research into the effects of racism on child health, a review of the literature was undertaken. METHODS: A MEDLINE review of the literature was conducted between October and November 2007. Studies reporting on empirical research relating to racism or racial discrimination as a predictor or contributor to a child health ou…
Perceptions of Racism in Children and Youth (PRaCY): Properties of a Self-Report Instrument for Research on Children's Health and Development
Experiences of racial discrimination have been demonstrated to be related to racial and ethnic disparities in mental and physical health and healthcare. There has been little study, however, of the relationship between racism and health in children, and few psychometrically valid and reliable instruments to measure Perceptions of Racism in Children and Youth (PRaCY) exist. This paper reports on the development and testing of such an instrument, t…
Psychology (41 works) · Developmental psychology (31 works) · Sociology (24 works) · Early Childhood Education and Development (22 works) · Ethnic group (20 works) · Racial and Ethnic Identity Research (20 works) · Medicine (14 works) · Demography (12 works) · Social Psychology (11 works) · Demography (9 works)