Black adolescents in the United States currently face a chronic mental health epidemic, characterized by rising rates of depression, anxiety, and a marked increase in suicidal ideation and behaviors. Central to these disparities is the experience of racism, an overarching risk factor that operates across individual, interpersonal, and structural levels to undermine well-being. This article reviews scientific evidence demonstrating how discriminatory encounters across levels, but particularly structural within schooling, housing, and the justice system, reinforce psychological outcomes for youth aged 16 to 22. To redress these racial harms, the proposed policies support, protect, and promote Black adolescent development. At the internal and interpersonal levels, funding cultural programs would promote healing and critical history education can combat internalized racism. Structurally, policies would expand access to free mental health services, promote restorative justice practices, reenvision academic support, and establish housing reparatory grants. By integrating clinical interventions with systemic reform, policymakers can move beyond traditional symptom management toward the active cultivation of safety, equity, and freedom for Black adolescents.
Children are not passive recipients of information; they are active, selective learners who decide whose knowledge to seek and trust. From infancy, children use social group membership, particularly race and gender, to filter who counts as a credible source of information. White American children show measurable preferences for learning from White informants over Black informants, and children of all genders tend to favor same-gender teachers, patterns that emerge before kindergarten and shape what children believe and who they trust. These biases are not fixed, however. By early elementary school, exposure to counterstereotypic information, such as a Black informant described as highly competent or a girl presented as a football expert, can meaningfully shift older children's learning preferences, even if younger children remain resistant to such updates. Critically, these patterns vary by age, cultural context, and children's own gender identity. Understanding how social group membership shapes children's learning decisions has direct implications for how we design classrooms, curricula, and the environments in which children learn.
Children routinely claim that they know and can do things that lie far outside their mental and physical capabilities. To adults, this unwarranted overconfidence may suggest a disconnect from reality, which could lead to missed learning opportunities or even risky behavior. Drawing on research in cognitive development, this article paints a more nuanced picture: Compared to what children say, what children do (e.g., asking for help, seeking information when uncertain) and how they react (e.g., showing surprise when achieving an unlikely outcome) reveals a more realistic understanding of their knowledge and abilities than their words let on. We discuss relevant empirical evidence and potential reasons behind this striking divergence and close with three broad considerations for stakeholders including (but not limited to) caregivers, educators, and policymakers: (1) what children say about their own competence may not always match what they think ; (2) early education that fosters lifelong learning should be not just about “getting the right answer” but also about understanding one's own competence and limitations; (3) evidence-based educational practices and policy require continued collaboration and exchange between scientists and early childhood stakeholders.
Economic integration can combat high and rising inequality, but young people from economically disadvantaged backgrounds do not automatically benefit from mixed-income neighborhoods and schools. According to this research synthesis, although mixed-income settings can increase upward mobility, exposure to higher-income peers may have negative effects on mental and behavioral health, especially during adolescence. Policies should aim to maximize the benefits and minimize the costs of economic integration by prioritizing integration at a local level (e.g., block groups, classrooms), aligning housing and education policies, investing in third places (such as libraries, parks, digital platforms), and supporting youth belonging through identity-affirming environments and opportunities for collective action.
The long-term impacts of early childhood education (ECE) programs at scale are smaller than those produced by influential demonstration programs half a century ago. Several factors likely contribute, some of which are in the control of policymakers and the designers of ECE programs (e.g., targeting and quality), and some of which are not (quality of conditions for children not served by ECE programs and children's experiences outside of ECE). Current efforts to measure and improve quality at scale are admirable, but this review argues for a complementary approach: the government should pilot a Cadillac public ECE program using the infrastructure of the federal Head Start program, called Head Start Plus . This program would be targeted toward the most disadvantaged children in the U.S. (those with the lowest family income and maternal education, and other dimensions of adversity) and would include several high-quality features; most notably, low child-to-teacher ratios (∼6:1 for preschoolers) and small group sizes. A pilot evaluation of the program would offer insights into the feasibility of achieving impacts and cost-benefit ratios in the range of those from demonstration programs and would provide benchmarks for effect sizes on measures of classroom processes and child outcomes that can guide the design, improvement, and evaluation of existing and future programs.
Concerns about the impact of screen time and social media on adolescent mental health have prompted rapid policy responses worldwide, including age restrictions, platform regulations, and school-based interventions. However, the scientific evidence presents a far more nuanced picture than public debates typically suggest. Large-scale studies and meta-analyses consistently find that digital media use explains only a small proportion of variation in adolescent mental health outcomes often less than 1% of variance, comparable in magnitude to effects of eating potatoes or wearing eyeglasses. At the same time, risks are not evenly distributed: early adolescent girls and those engaged in image-based platforms may be more vulnerable, particularly through mechanisms such as sleep disruption, social comparison, and cyberbullying. This article reviews current evidence, distinguishes correlation from causation, and highlights key developmental and contextual differences that policymakers frequently overlook. It then examines major policy options including platform design regulation, age verification laws, parental controls, and digital literacy education, outlining their potential benefits and real-world trade-offs. Rather than advocating a single solution, the paper presents a framework for evidence-informed policymaking that emphasizes proportionality, equity, and adaptability. Effective policy should move beyond panic-driven responses toward targeted, developmentally informed strategies that protect adolescents while preserving their rights and access to beneficial digital spaces.
Lifespan developmental psychology identifies both early childhood and late adulthood as sensitive periods for developing social-emotional skills crucial for wellbeing. The public seeks support for these developmental periods, structured social-emotional programs such as childcare and older adult social activities. However, policy solutions have yet to fully address the increasing need for social-emotional supports for the youngest and oldest members of society; policymakers meet economic- and workforce-related roadblocks. This review summarizes empirical evidence on how intergenerational, joint programs that bridge early childhood and late adulthood care impact social-emotional outcomes. Joint programming is a promising policy route to address the social-emotional needs of young children and older adults. Policy—including economic concerns, accessibility, and alternative policy options—can use empirical evidence on joint early childhood and late adulthood programs for social-emotional wellbeing. Evidence-based suggestions facilitate successful program design and implementation.
Emerging adults–young people between the ages of 18 and 25–are one of the most poorly served age groups in the criminal justice system. Although emerging adults constitute a substantial portion of the people who are arrested, charged, or incarcerated, they are also at an age of exceptional promise and malleability, “an age of opportunity” when the chance to finish school, get a job, develop healthy relationships, or access healthcare can transform their path to long-term economic self-sufficiency and emotional well-being. Unfortunately, many adult criminal justice systems squander emerging adults’ unique potential, leading to worse outcomes for young people and more potential crime for their communities. This article reviews current knowledge on the key developmental needs of emerging adults, how the adult criminal justice system can undermine healthy emerging adult development, and the social and biological factors that promote psychosocial maturity and desistance from crime. The review also examines what works to support emerging adults in successfully exiting the criminal justice system for good. Evidence-based programs and systemic approaches can ensure young people have the tools they need to not only avoid system involvement but to thrive as healthy and contributing members of society.
Adolescents are experiencing a crisis of disconnection, potentially due to a lack of understanding their own and others’ sexualities and heightened difficulty with developing and maintaining intimate relationships. These challenges may undermine adolescents′ sense of belonging and persist into adulthood. To prevent these issues from emerging in the first place, comprehensive sex education may function as a structural intervention by providing accurate and affirming information about diverse sexual identities and intimate relationships. Namely, all youth should receive comprehensive sex education that is culturally relevant, such that the instruction not only should be medically accurate and developmentally appropriate but also should engage students’ lived experiences. Reviewing the empirical base illustrates that comprehensive sex education can help adolescents understand their own and others’ sexual identities, foster belonging across diverse social groups, and develop fulfilling intimate relationships. Finally, policymakers and relevant stakeholders should advocate for nationwide standards for comprehensive sex education that require core evidence-based topics across states while allowing districts and schools to adapt the language, examples, and delivery to the students they serve. Given its established benefits, culturally relevant comprehensive sex education represents a promising structural intervention for promoting healthy development, belonging, and well-being across the life span.
Children's increasing screen time has sparked attention on its effects on language development, predominantly for first languages. Understanding how screen use relates to second language (L2) development in bilingual children remains limited. This paper synthesizes findings on the quantity and quality of screen use and their roles in children's L2 learning. Moderate screen exposure is positively associated with L2 receptive skills, while excessive use may displace social interaction and hinder development. Productive skills see inconsistent findings, reflecting the limitations and transferability of passive input for active language outcomes. Quality tells a clearer story: Educational content, age-appropriate design, and adult co-viewing or peer collaboration are more consistently associated with positive L2 outcomes. These findings carry directs policy implications. Existing guidelines primarily focused on time limits fail to capture how screen use could support language learning. A more effective approach would retain time thresholds while adding guidance on content quality, media design, and socially embedded screen use. Implications for parents, educators, and policymakers are discussed alongside priorities for future research.
Social class discrimination refers to the negative overt or subtle interpersonal treatment that individuals encounter because they are disadvantaged in social class. Adolescents experience social class discrimination from peers, school personnel, and other adults, often cued by visible markers, such as clothing, housing, food access, and the (in)ability to pay for school activities. Up to 50% of adolescents surveyed report social class discrimination, underscoring the need for consideration. During adolescence, these experiences may be especially consequential because young people are navigating pubertal change, heightened peer evaluation, awareness of inequality, and identity development. Social class discrimination is associated with academic outcomes, substance use, body dissatisfaction, disordered eating, depressive symptoms, and self-esteem. This article reviews evidence on social class discrimination and identifies policy-relevant strategies for multiple stakeholders, including policymakers, families, school personnel, and adolescents. Strategies include (a) acknowledging and (b) eliminating social class discrimination, and (c) supporting adolescents who are disadvantaged in social class. Recommendations include developing policies and trainings that increase awareness, promote coping, and encourage advocacy to address social class discrimination.
Early childhood policy in the United States is largely organized around identifying and mitigating risk, often operationalized through standardized indicators such as poverty, adverse experiences, and academic vulnerability that shape how systems define need and allocate resources. Although this approach has generated important insights, it provides a partial, often deficit-focused, view of children's developmental contexts. Developmental science shows that children's outcomes are shaped not only by exposure to structural risk factors but also by the presence of protective and promotive factors embedded within culturally grounded and relational contexts. Cultural wealth offers one framework for capturing dimensions of children's environments that are not typically reflected in risk-based policy measures. This article reviews evidence on contextual and cultural resources and examines how policy frameworks can expand to better capture these dimensions. It shows how the measurement of context shapes what policy systems can detect, support, and respond to, including which children and communities are identified as needing support and which strengths remain unrecognized. It then outlines policy options for strengthening how early childhood systems define and measure context across accountability systems, data infrastructure, and implementation.
As the population of adolescents from immigrant families in the United States continues to increase, these youths’ well-being matters. Bicultural stress, stemming from a need to navigate and balance the different expectations based on the dominant culture in which they live and their family's cultural heritage, can undermine adolescent mental health and well-being. Bicultural stress puts strain on youth as they develop their personal identity and plan for the transition to adulthood. This review summarizes the research examining the impact of bicultural stress on adolescent mental health and well-being. Immigration-related policies affect the relations between bicultural stress and youth well-being. Specific policy changes and community actions can reduce or eliminate the impact of bicultural stress on adolescent mental health and well-being, improving outcomes in youth from immigrant families.
Adolescence is a period of neurobiological development, characterized by heightened reward sensitivity, increased social orientation, and still-developing regulatory systems. In this paper, we examine how these core aspects of adolescent brain development can function both as liabilities within current digital ecosystems and as leverage points for designing healthier, developmentally aligned digital media. Drawing on the scientific literature, we review evidence that features of current digital media platforms systematically exploit these developmental sensitivities, such as intermittent and variable rewards (e.g., notifications), quantified social feedback (e.g., likes), algorithmic personalization, beauty filters, and interactive human-like AI chatbots. We close with a discussion of policy implications for designing safer, developmentally appropriate, and neurobiologically-informed digital spaces.
Countless decisions are made over the course of a child's life that will impact their physical and mental health, happiness, and educational and future professional attainment. Some of these decisions are pivotal and may have immediate implications for a child's well-being, such as decisions about pursuing medical treatment or about custody arrangements following contentious parental divorce. According to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, children have the right to participate in such life-altering decisions. However, what that involvement looks like at different periods of development, what the implications of involvement are for children's well-being, and whether children's involvement ultimately improves or impedes decision-making on behalf of the child, have long been subjects of debate across divided bodies of literature (e.g., involvement in medical decisions versus legal decisions). In this paper, we provide an overview of the literature on children's involvement in major life decisions including existing policies, highlight common themes such as capabilities required for successful involvement, identify potential pros and cons of involving children, and end by recommending evidence-based practices for involving children across different ages and capacities.
In this paper, we apply the principles of Relational-Developmental Systems to explain the role classrooms and schools play in youths’ adaptive development. Taking an applied developmental perspective, we argue that an open classroom climate —where students perceive teachers to be supportive of diverse perspectives and welcoming of discussion about controversial social and political issues—is both a developmental asset and a necessary feature of classrooms and schools. An open classroom climate is critical to individual youth's healthy functioning and supports schools in the fulfillment of their democratic aim. Currently, students attending K-12 public schools in the United States face limitations in access to educational content, which is being restricted through increasingly sophisticated, organized efforts to control what teachers teach, how they teach, and what materials appear in their classrooms. Such efforts contradict research suggesting that young people need opportunities to discuss social and political issues within their classrooms. After reviewing evidence that substantiates the developmental, academic, and civic benefits associated with open classroom climate, we provide recommendations for how teachers, schools, and education-related policymakers should support the facilitation of open classroom climates, for the benefit of students and for society.
Can mental health apps be a tool in tackling the declining mental health in the United States and around the globe? Our review of the literature shows that mental health apps can improve symptoms of some disorders, such as depression and anxiety, when compared to no treatment. Such evidence of efficacy, however, is lacking in populations that are underserved by existing mental health services, including youth, seniors, men, and racial minorities. Additionally, a large number of apps claim to be evidence-based without any publicly available peer-reviewed evidence. This unregulated marketplace risks misleading consumers and exacerbating health disparities. We propose multi-level policy solutions, including oversight by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), voluntary adoption of scientific disclosure standards by app stores, and the creation of accessible, AI-enhanced databases to help consumers identify validated tools. Mental health apps promise to expand access to care, but without stronger evidence and regulation, they may deepen-rather than bridge-the mental health treatment divide.
Girls of color experience disproportionately high rates of sexually transmitted infections, unintended pregnancy, and sexual violence compared to their White peers. Despite these disparities, current sexuality education programs- designed from White, Christian, middle-class, and heterosexual perspectives- largely fail to address the unique socialization experiences that contribute to these inequitable outcomes. This paper applies an intersectional framework to examine how gendered and racialized sexual stereotypes shape the sexual development of girls of color. These stereotypes are learned through media and family socialization, influence girls' sexual self-concept, and increase vulnerability to discriminatory treatment. Proposed policy reforms include shifting federal funding toward comprehensive programs, mandating culturally inclusive curriculum standards that explicitly address sexual stereotypes, and investing in research to evaluate program effectiveness. This intersectional approach benefits all students by equipping girls of color with tools to resist stereotypes while educating others to recognize and interrupt their perpetuation.
Implicit (unintentional) biases related to social categories (including race, gender, and age) are often seen as impediments to belonging and success in diverse organizations. Indeed, organizations around the world expend considerable effort and resources to implement educational programs with the stated goal of addressing - and even eradicating - such biases. However, in recent years, implicit bias education has come under scrutiny for several reasons, including via claims that implicit bias (a) is inherently unchangeable, (b) has no real-world analogs, (c) is unrelated to, and detracts focus from, biased behaviors, (d) provides an excuse for discrimination, and (e) is a structural problem and thus requires structural solutions. After refuting these critiques, this review introduces the MAIBE checklist to help organizations decide if implicit bias education is worth their investment based on whether it (a) includes measurable benchmarks (rather than assuming success), (b) foregrounds epistemic agency (rather than treating individuals as passive consumers of information), (c) is integrated into a larger toolbox (rather than administered in isolation), (d) is broad (rather than light-touch), and (e) is evidence-based (rather than unscientific). The article concludes by calling for extended collaboration between academic psychologists and organizational decision-makers to synergistically improve both basic science and institutional practices.
Artificial intelligence (AI) models trained on large corpora must prioritize some information over others. Distilling vast data into simple user-friendly representations can lead to a prioritization problem, in which large AI models neglect crucial information in their outputs. This prioritization problem manifests for newsfeed-ranking algorithms and generative AI such as large language models (LLMs). This paper discusses two flavors of this problem: (1) models trained to prioritize coherence or engagement may inadvertently prioritize misleading information over accurate information, and (2) models trained to prioritize prevalent information will underrepresent the heterogeneity of voices, reflecting cultural perspectives that dominate the training data. The prioritization problem can critically undermine knowledge, but it is not inevitable. Policymakers can address the prioritization problem by modifying the training material, training objectives, institutional safeguards, and messaging around large AI models.
