Assistant Professor of Psychology at Virginia Commonwealth University
About
Dr. Jones' program of research principally seeks to challenge, clarify, and correct the narrative concerning risk and resilience for Black youth and their families. He strives to better understand the interplay between race-related risk (e.g., racial discrimination, racism-related stress) and protective factors (e.g., racial identity, racial socialization, Africentricity) that influence Black youth psychological wellbeing. To that end, his investigations seek to move beyond understanding that racial/ethnic factors are protective, to unearthing the mechanisms and processes that explain how this protection is achieved. He employs both quantitative and qualitative methodologies—including utilizing mixed methods—and his strengths-based approach is grounded in cultural ecological models, acknowledging the role of individual and broader contextual (e.g., microsystem, macrosystem) factors. Lastly, as a scientist-practitioner, his research endeavors to answer these questions in the service of identifying avenues for prevention and intervention efforts.
Current Work:
Dr. Jones’ research interests have increasingly focused on culturally-relevant protective and promotive factors for Black youth and their families. Currently, Dr. Jones is investigating the dynamics that underlie how Black families navigate the racial socialization of their children through the Raising Our Offspring Every Day (ROOTED) project. ROOTED is a series of three related but distinct studies, each of which uses a mixed method approach (collection of both quantitative and qualitative data).
The primary aim of the first study is to use survey and interview methods to elucidate the ways in which Black families representing a diverse structural spectrum (e.g., non-residential co-parents, extended kin, blended families, LGBT couples) undertake the racial socialization of their children together. The primary aim of the second study is to capture the synergistic and bidirectional nature of racial socialization “in the moment”, by using media-based scenarios to create and code ecologically-valid, family-level conversations. The primary approach of the third study is to prospectively assess how Black co-parents at various developmental stages anticipate (and modify) teaching their children about race “in-the-future”.
Research Area Keyword(s):
Mental health, racial socialization, family, racial discrimination, racial identity
