Childhood foundations of Black and Latinx adolescents’ critical consciousness: The roles of prosocial behavior and cognitive self‐regulation

Abstract Critical consciousness (CC) among racially and ethnically marginalized youth has been linked to many aspects of well‐being. However, we lack understanding of how US children's earlier prosocial behaviors and self‐regulation may lay the foundation for their later CC during adolescence. Integrating Watts and Flanagan's framework on youth sociopolitical development (2007) and García Coll and colleagues’ (1996) integrative model of child development, this study examined how early prosocial and self‐regulatory competencies ( N = 249, n girls = 141; 77.1% Black, 22.9% Latinx; M age = 4.19) set the stage for teens’ CC ( M age = 16.17), via prosocial behavior and cognitive self‐regulation during middle childhood ( M age = 8.75). Findings revealed that cognitive self‐regulation in middle childhood explained sociopolitical efficacy and critical action in adolescence. Additionally, preschoolers’ prosocial behavior predicted critical action during adolescence. Interestingly, prosocial behavior and cognitive self‐regulation during middle childhood operated as simultaneous mediators in the pathway from preschoolers’ prosocial behavior to teens’ sociopolitical efficacy and critical action. There was a specific indirect link between preschoolers’ prosocial behavior and teens’ critical action via cognitive self‐regulation during middle childhood. Given these findings, our discussion focuses on prosocial behavior, cognitive self‐regulation, and teens’ critical action. In particular, we address directions for future research as well as program and policy implications.