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The Atlantic
Too often their behavior is pathologized, but actually it’s rational.
Rita Barros / Getty
Social workers and educators who see young people especially Black boys who live in poor, segregated neighborhoods react aggressively, become irritable, or have trouble concentrating, often identify such behavior as maladaptive. But new research, led by Noni Gaylord-Harden, a clinical psychologist at Texas A&M University, proposes that the young people’s behavior is a rational response to their environment and helps keep them safe. Her findings suggest that instead of focusing on these behaviors identifying them as pathologies to be punished or symptoms to be treated policy makers need to recognize them as adaptive and work to change the inequitable environment that produces them.