Understanding the Challenges Faced by Boys and Young Men of Color

INTERACTIVE MAP: Share of males, age 0-24 who live in areas of concentrated and deeply concentrated poverty. View map >

Boys and young men of color face profound challenges growing up in America. They are twice as likely to grow up in poverty as non-Hispanic white males and much more likely to live in neighborhoods of concentrated poverty. As they move through life, many face multiple educational and economic disadvantages, leaving African American and Hispanic males less likely than their white and Asian peers to have high school diplomas and more likely to be jobless.

Even boys and young men of color who don’t face as many disadvantages frequently find themselves negatively affected by social and cultural perspectives, institutions, and systems within the larger society. Understanding the larger context is essential to developing effective mechanisms for removing barriers that are created for boys and young men of color.

In the papers below, the Urban Institute has laid out the challenges faced by these boys and young men in several important areas and identified a number of policies, system reforms, and programs that could put them on course for successful transition to adulthood.

This research, which draws on a broad body of Urban Institute work, was done to inform philanthropic efforts that resulted in the report A Time for Action: Mobilizing Philanthropic Support for Boys and Young Men of Color. The report was released shortly after the My Brother’s Keeper Task Force announced its initial plan in May 2014.

Featured Research

• Understanding the Environmental Contexts of Boys and Young Men of Color
  Lynette A. Rawlings
• Promoting Healthy Families and Communities for Boys and Young Men of Color
  Nan Astone, Susan J. Popkin, Heather Sandstrom, Lisa Dubay
• Reducing Harms to Boys and Young Men of Color from Criminal Justice System Involvement
  Akiva Liberman, Jocelyn Fontaine
• Expanding Economic Opportunity for Young Men and Boys of Color through Employment and Training
  Shayne Spaulding, Robert I. Lerman, Harry Holzer, Lauren Eyster

Criminal Justice

• Labeling Effects of First Juvenile Arrests: Secondary Deviance and Secondary Sanctioning
  Akiva Liberman, David S. Kirk, KiDeuk Kim
• Stop and Frisk: Balancing Crime Control with Community Relations
  Nancy G. La Vigne, Pamela Lachman, Shebani Rao, Andrea Matthews
• Evaluation of the Allegheny County Jail Collaborative Reentry Programs: Findings and Recommendations
  Janeen Buck Willison, Samuel Bieler, KiDeuk Kim
• Close-Range Gunfire around DC Schools
  Samuel Bieler, Nancy G. La Vigne

Economic Opportunity

• The First Year of Accelerating Opportunity: Implementation Findings from the States and Colleges
  Anderson, Theresa, Lauren Eyster, Robert I. Lerman, Carol Clymer, Maureen Conway, and Marcela Montes
• Higher Education Earning Premium: Value, Variation and Trends
  Sandy Baum
• Final Report on the Evaluation of the National Science Foundation Louis Stokes Alliances for Minority Participation Program
  Beatriz Chu Clewell, Clemencia Cosentino de Cohen, Nicole Deterding, and Lisa Tsui

Healthy Children and Families

• Exploring Instability and Children’s Well Being: Insights from a Dialogue among Practitioners, Policymakers and Researchers
  Gina Adams, Lisa Dubay
• Chronic Violence: Beyond the Developments
  Chantal Hailey and Megan Gallagher
• CHA Residents and the Plan for Transformation
  Susan J. Popkin, Megan Gallagher, Chantal Hailey, Elizabeth Davies, Larry Buron, and Christopher Hayes
• A Decade of HOPE VI: Research Findings and Policy Challenges
  Susan J. Popkin, Bruce Katz, Mary K. Cunningham, Karen D. Brown, Jeremy Gustafson, and Margery Austin Turner

From the Urban Wire

• A perfect Mother’s day gift
  Margaret Simms
• Breaking down barriers to help boys and young men of color succeed
  Margaret Simms
• Tearing down barriers to success for young men of color
  Nancy LaVigne
• Millions of black students attend public schools that are highly segregated by race and by income
  Reed Jordan
• Many DC children are struggling to breathe. Is bad communication to blame?
  Marla McDaniel
• Helping Fathers Become Better Parents
  Margaret Simms
• To gauge the health of your whole community, look to your teens
  Laudy Aron

Urban Institute is an Atlantic grantee.