Diane Hughes
· Professor of Applied PsychologyNew York University · Applied Psychology
Active 1980–2025
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About
Diane Hughes is a Professor of Applied Psychology at the NYU Steinhardt School of Culture, Development, and Education. Her research focuses on understanding how racial and ethnic dynamics influence individuals' experiences across various settings such as workplaces, classrooms, neighborhoods, and families. She investigates ethnic and cultural differences in parents' socialization goals, beliefs, and practices, particularly as these influence children's learning. Dr. Hughes conducts school and community-based studies with adolescents and their parents using multiple methods including interviews, surveys, and focus groups. Her recent work involves analyzing data from longitudinal studies of adolescents and their caregivers to understand how stressors and supports impact academic and socio-emotional development over time.
Research topics
- Sociology
- Gender studies
- Developmental psychology
- Psychology
- Social psychology
- Social Science
- Demography
- Medicine
Selected publications
Developmental Psychology · 2019-02-26 · 105 citations
articleAn increasing body of research on critical consciousness explores how youth understand and react to inequality in their social contexts. The operationalization of critical consciousness remains inchoate, however. Developmental psychology traditionally conceptualizes critical consciousness as three components (critical reflection, political efficacy, and critical action), but how levels of these components combine for different youth or relate to outcomes remains unclear. This article uses latent…
Journal of Youth and Adolescence · 2019-10-24 · 56 citations
articleSenior authorThrough the looking glass: Ethnic racial socialization among children and adolescents
Journal of Social Issues · 2021 · 48 citations
Abstract Ethnicity and race are critical in how children and youth experience, negotiate, and navigate development. A robust literature has illustrated that ethnic‐racial socialization (ERS) in particular plays an important role in how children develop an understanding of ethnicity and race. The majority of research has typically focused on parents as agents of socialization and ERS during adolescence. In addition, most studies use survey approaches and focus on US‐based populations. We highligh…
Child Development · 2020 · 41 citations
The authors examined whether the longitudinal inter-relations between ethnic-racial discrimination and ethnic-racial identity vary according to the perpetrator of discrimination. The authors used three waves of data from early adolescents (n = 387; ages 11-12 at Wave 1) to assess the strength and direction of relations between perceived discrimination from non-school adults and peers vis-à-vis ethnic-racial identity exploration, commitment, private regard, and public regard. Cross-lagged autoreg…
Neighborhood‐level predictors of African American and Latinx parents' ethnic–racial socialization
American Journal of Community Psychology · 2021 · 33 citations
Senior authorCorresponding= 39) with a child between 6- and 17-years old living in two urban US cities were included. Cultural perceptions were assessed at both the individual level (e.g., perceived discrimination and ethnic affirmation) and neighborhood level along with demographic and structural neighborhood characteristics at the individual and neighborhood level, respectively. Multilevel analyses revealed that at both the individual level and neighborhood levels, perceived neighborhood problems were associated with m…
Recent grants
IRADS: The Study of Culture, Social Settings, and Child Development across School Transitions
NSF · $2.5M · 2007–2013
Center for Research on Culture, Development and Education
NSF · $2.5M · 2002–2008
Frequent coauthors
- 33 shared
Niobe Way
New York University
- 11 shared
Juan Del Toro
Twin Cities Orthopedics
- 8 shared
Dawn P. Witherspoon
Pennsylvania State University
- 8 shared
Ellen Galinsky
Families USA
- 8 shared
Hirokazu Yoshikawa
- 7 shared
Carolin Hagelskamp
Berlin School of Economics and Law
- 7 shared
Erika Y. Niwa
Brooklyn College
- 6 shared
Rebecca Kang McGill
Institute of Education Sciences
Education
- 1988
PhD, Psychology
University of Michigan
- 1982
MA, Psychology
University of Michigan
- 1979
BA, Psychology, African Amerian studies
Williams College
Awards & honors
- John d. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation's sub-group on…
- co-chair of the 14 member cross-university Study Group on Ra…
- Carnegie Corporation of New York support
- William T. Grant Foundation support
- National Science Foundation support
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