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Diane Hughes
Alma mater Williams College; University of Michigan
Occupation Professor of Applied Psychology
Awards
  • SRCD Distinguished Contributions to Understanding International, Cultural, and Contextual Diversity in Child Development Award (2021)
Scientific career
Institutions New York University

Diane Leslie Hughes is a special kind of scientist. She is a developmental psychologist. This means she studies how kids grow and learn. She is known for her work on how families talk about race. She also looks at how people from different backgrounds get along. Dr. Hughes teaches at New York University. She is a Professor of Applied Psychology there. She also helps lead a research center at NYU.

In 2021, she won a big award. It was for her amazing work. The award recognized her studies on families and parenting. It also praised her research on how different places, like schools, affect young people.

About Diane Hughes

Diane Hughes went to Williams College. She earned a degree in Psychology and African-American Studies in 1979. Later, she studied at the University of Michigan. There, she earned her master's degree in 1983. She then completed her Ph.D. in 1988. Her studies focused on how communities and development affect people.

Dr. Hughes joined New York University in 1988. She has worked there ever since. Her important research has received funding. Groups like the National Science Foundation have supported her work. Other groups include the National Institutes of Health.

What Diane Hughes Studies

Dr. Hughes studies how parents talk to their children about race. She looks at how these talks affect kids. She wants to know how kids develop their identity. She also studies how these talks affect their well-being.

She does her research in different ways. She talks to groups of people. She also uses surveys and interviews. She follows children and their parents over time. This helps her see how they change. She often follows them from middle school to high school.

In one study, she talked to parents. These parents were from Dominican, Puerto Rican, and African-American backgrounds. She asked them about two main things. One was "cultural socialization messages." These are talks about family history and pride. The other was "preparation for bias messages." These are talks about dealing with unfair treatment or discrimination.

She found that parents often shared cultural pride messages. These were more common than talks about bias. African-American parents talked about bias more often. Dominican parents also talked about bias more than Puerto Rican parents. These talks about bias seemed linked to parents' own experiences. They shared these messages to help their children.

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