Abstract
As Black youth face race-related stress from personal and vicarious experiences with police, practices advancing youth’s coping self-efficacy and agency are needed. We describe the pilot of a program supporting Black adolescents in creating virtual narratives detailing encounters and resolutions with police and offer preliminary observations of how this program could facilitate racial coping and emotional support. The program included four weeks consisting of both curriculum-based instruction and hands-on activities, four weeks solely focused on designing and developing students’ projects, and one week devoted to students’ final project presentations and peer feedback. We utilized a participatory design to co-create narratives with four high school students in Detroit, Michigan. We discuss how these processes can aid in the development of programs designed to reduce Black youth’s racial stress and improve youth’s coping self-efficacy. Our design and practical recommendations contribute to current literature investigating the utility of virtual narratives in redressing coping strategies for Black youth.
Recommended Citation
Olson, Danielle M.; Musgrave, Tyler; Gumudavelly, Divya; Galan, Chardee; Schoenebeck, Sarita; Harrell, D. Fox; and Anderson, Riana E.
(2023)
"Embracing Virtual Reality Technology with Black Adolescents to Redress Police Encounters,"
Journal of Youth Development: Vol. 18:
Iss.
3, Article 6.
Available at:
https://open.clemson.edu/jyd/vol18/iss3/6
Included in
Child Psychology Commons, Civic and Community Engagement Commons, Community-Based Learning Commons, Developmental Psychology Commons
