Every Day Matters: Using Daily Methods to Understand Oppression and BIPOC Youth Development in Context.

There is an increasing use of daily methods (e.g., daily diaries, experience sampling method) by research investigating the roles of oppression, racism, and discrimination on Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC) youth adjustment. This commentary discusses several promising directions in which daily methods can help (1) understand adolescents' oppression-related experiences in everyday life, (2) investigate the immediate and long-term implications of these experiences, and (3) explore the role of protective processes and broader contexts. Moving forward, daily methods can be more broadly integrated into other methodologies (e.g., longitudinal designs, qualitative/mixed methods), providing unique insights into how systems of oppression become relevant in BIPOC adolescents' everyday life and informing practices to improve their adjustment on a daily basis and over the long term.

Oppression, prejudice, and discrimination have clear, pervasive consequences on the development of Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) youth across domains (see Benner et al., 2018 for a meta‐analytic review). It has long been recognized that racism and discrimination are everyday challenges that BIPOC populations need to navigate in their life (Rosenbloom & Way, 2004; Williams et al., 1997). However, it is only recently that research began employing a micro lens to investigate adolescents’ everyday experiences of discrimination, aided by advances in data collection technologies and statistical methods. In this commentary, I will summarize existing research that has examined young people’s oppression‐related experiences (OREs) using daily methods, and discuss a few promising directions in terms of how research integrating daily methods will help (1) understand OREs in everyday life, (2) investigate the immediate and long‐term implications of OREs, and (3) explore the role of protective processes and broader contexts.

Oppression is defined as “the systematic use of power or authority to treat others unjustly” (Garcia Coll et al., 1996, p. 1900). Here, I use oppression‐related experiences (OREs) to refer to individual experiences as a result of the multiple systems of oppression (racism, sexism, heterosexism, classism, etc.), noting that the majority of the existing daily research reviewed here has focused on interpersonal experiences of racism and discrimination. Additionally, daily methods are generally defined as those that involve collecting intensive longitudinal data on individual experiences and well‐being, such as a daily diary design, an experience sampling design, ecological momentary assessment, and ambulatory assessment (Bolger & Laurenceau, 2013). There are statistical and methodological discussions of the advantages and applications of these methods elsewhere (Hamaker et al., 2021; Modecki et al., 2019; Wrzus & Neubauer, 2022). This commentary focuses on theoretical insights and unique contributions that can be gained by integrating daily methods in research on BIPOC youth.

Understanding and Measuring Oppression‐Related Experiences in Everyday Life

In terms of measurement, one advantage of daily methods is that they capture individuals’ everyday experiences more accurately than traditional survey research (e.g., recalling one’s experiences of discrimination in the past year) by avoiding retrospective memory bias (Bolger et al., 2003). As such, research that employs daily methods provides better insights in terms of the frequency and patterns of OREs in BIPOC adolescents’ everyday life. Most daily studies to date show that discrimination occurs, on average, on one to two days per week (e.g., Chen et al., 2022 in this special issue; Douglass et al., 2016; Potochnick et al., 2012; Seaton & Iida, 2019; Yip et al., 2020). Yet, there are also studies observing more frequent discriminatory occurrences (2–5 events per day; English et al., 2020; Seaton & Douglass, 2014). In any case, these findings highlight interpersonal discrimination as a relatively frequent experience occurring in the everyday lives of young people. However, it should be noted that reports of discrimination could be of low frequency in the data, as most daily research collects data for about one or two weeks. When this issue is present, appropriate statistical methods that are robust to non‐normality should be used.

Moving forward, more work is needed to disentangle the observed discrepancies in the frequency of discrimination or OREs more generally. Could the discrepancies be due to the discrimination assessment scale being used? Or the response options (e.g., compared to other daily research that uses yes or no responses, the two studies that observe higher frequencies ask for the number of events per day; English et al., 2020; Seaton & Douglass, 2014)? Should response timing (e.g., in the moment vs. at the end of the day) be considered? Future research should also look into individual and contextual factors that may contribute to how frequently BIPOC youth experience OREs.

Relatedly, we need more psychometric work to ensure the appropriateness of the assessment scales for daily use. For example, most daily studies to date have adapted existing instruments that were developed and intended to be used to understand an individual’s experiences over a relatively long period of time (e.g., in the past year). Yet, it is possible that not all items or instruments sufficiently capture daily experiences or show much daily variation, as demonstrated by a recent study using a multilevel Item Response Theory analysis of the Everyday Discrimination Scale (Williams et al., 1997) in daily assessment (Feng et al., 2021). Future daily research that adapts existing measures should consider conducting analyses to examine their psychometric properties at the daily level.

We also need more research and measures to understand contemporary experiences of oppression that are relevant for today’s BIPOC youth. Many of the existing discrimination measures were developed more than a decade ago (Benner et al., 2018). Over that same time period, OREs (e.g., in which form, where, by whom, and who is being targeted) have changed considerably with shifts in population demographics, historical and sociopolitical contexts (e.g., the COVID‐19 pandemic; Cheah et al., 2020; anti‐immigration policies; Wray‐Lake et al., 2018), and technologies (e.g., online experiences of racism; Tynes et al., 2008). For example, a recent daily diary study that incorporates items from multiple existing scales shows that online discrimination occurs more frequently than that offline (English et al., 2020), highlighting the need for future research to incorporate measures and items that capture the changing experiences of today’s BIPOC youth.

Future research would also benefit from broadening the focus on interpersonal experiences of discrimination to include other forms of OREs. There is an emerging recognition of the role of structural‐level racism and oppression in influencing BIPOC individuals and families (Neblett, 2019), but relatively limited attention has been paid to how these structural‐level factors shape adolescents’ everyday experiences. For example, qualitative research has documented how community‐level police violence may shape BIPOC young people’s everyday fear and worry over getting involved with the police (Smith Lee & Robinson, 2019). There is also work documenting how anti‐immigration policies create fear and anxiety for families with undocumented status (Cardoso et al., 2021), shaping the content of family communications in everyday life (Cross et al., 2021). Research that looks into these everyday experiences will help us better understand how structural‐level oppression becomes relevant in adolescents’ lives.

To investigate these emerging experiences that are not yet fully understood by the literature, daily methods may be particularly advantageous when combined with qualitative or mixed methods. As an example, a recent study used a mixed‐methods experience sampling approach to investigate everyday experiences of intersectionality among Black LGBQ adults (Jackson et al., 2020). Participants were asked to report if they experienced any event that was related to being both Black and LGBQ, and if so, to briefly describe and explain the experience. The authors further coded the qualitative responses and identified the average frequency of intersectional experiences in Black LGBQ adults’ everyday life (14–20% of the study days; i.e., about one to two days per week). Importantly, the combination of qualitative and daily data provides an accurate, rich description of intersectional experiences in participants’ own words, beyond items pre‐specified by researchers and existing scales; it also captures minor experiences that can be easily forgotten over time (e.g., in interview or focus groups), but that are meaningful for daily well‐being (Jackson et al., 2021). The integration of these various methods will provide a better opportunity for research to truly unpack adolescents' ORES in everyday life.

Understanding Immediate and Long‐term Influences of Oppression‐Related Experiences

Moving to the developmental consequences, research using daily methods provides unique insights into the more immediate mechanisms via which discrimination and oppression influence BIPOC adolescents’ everyday adjustment. Existing daily research has documented the same‐day and/or next‐day implications of OREs (e.g., discrimination, teasing, victimization, and microaggression) on psychological well‐being in ethnically/racially diverse samples (Cheeks et al., 2020; Douglass et al., 2016; Seaton & Douglass, 2014; Seaton & Iida, 2019; Wang, 2021); there is also an emerging focus on markers of psychobiological functioning, such as sleep (Chen et al., 2022; Goosby et al., 2018; Yip et al., 2020) and physiological stress responses, including HPA axis functioning (Seaton & Zeiders, 2021; Zeiders et al., 2018) and sympathetic arousal (Jelsma et al., 2021). These daily mechanisms shed light on potential pathways through which everyday OREs may contribute to the long‐term mental and physical health disparities that often disadvantage BIPOC youth. Practices that seek to alleviate the immediate influence of OREs in everyday life may also be effective in interrupting the accumulation of these negative effects over time.

Moving forward, our knowledge can be further improved by broadening the investigation of developmental domains. For example, there is relatively limited attention to how OREs may influence adolescents’ everyday school‐related functioning in terms of attendance (Benner & Graham, 2011), school engagement (Wang, 2021), or even cognitive functioning (Bair & Steele, 2010), which can be important elements for long‐term educational outcomes. Moreover, technology advances also allow for ambulatory assessment of everyday health behaviors such as physical activity and sedentary behaviors (Nam et al., 2021), as well as screen use (Wade et al., 2021). Using these objectively assessed outcomes will add another layer of validity to the everyday consequences of OREs. Research that integrates these data points will also provide a better understanding of how OREs affect everyday health behaviors that can conjointly contribute to health disparities in the long term for BIPOC youth.

In understanding the influence of OREs on these various developmental domains, research could also benefit from a more flexible investigation of time (Gee et al., 2019), looking beyond same‐day and next‐day associations. For example, by using various sampling times, research shows how the physiological responses to OREs can occur on a momentary basis (Jelsma et al., 2021), within the same day (Seaton & Zeiders, 2021), and within a week (Zeiders et al., 2018). These findings together could provide a full picture of how the everyday influence of OREs progresses over time (e.g., starting from when, for how long). These timing mechanisms can also be investigated by more flexible modeling strategies. For example, Hoggard et al. (2015) and Xie et al. (2021) examined the everyday trajectories of depressive symptoms and sleep/wake problems before and after the occurrence of discrimination, providing an approach to exploring not only how discrimination affects individual outcomes on the same day but also how fast they return to typical levels (i.e., recover) after a discrimination event. These investigations will provide a better understanding of the immediate mechanisms via which OREs influence BIPOC youth adjustment in everyday life.

In addition to immediate mechanisms, daily methods can also be leveraged with longitudinal designs to provide unique insights that integrate daily and long‐term processes. For example, existing research has proposed mechanisms via which chronic OREs or discrimination in specific can shape and condition the influence of daily discrimination on well‐being (Ong et al., 2009). On the other hand, daily influences of discrimination could also accumulate over time to influence long‐term development. For this latter mechanism, Yip et al. (2022) present an example in which daily experiences of discrimination are linked to mental health problems both on a daily basis and over time via daily sleep/wake problems. Recent statistical development (e.g., dynamic structural equation modeling; Hamaker et al., 2021) also allows for linking novel, conceptually meaningful daily quantities (e.g., variability in OREs and adjustment, the carry‐over of OREs and adjustment from one day to another, and daily reactivity to OREs) to long‐term development. These mechanisms would provide direct, concrete evidence (as opposed to mere assumptions) that daily effects of OREs would accumulate over time, and highlight novel levers of change in everyday life to improve BIPOC youth development in the long term.

Understanding the Role of Protective Processes and Contexts

Moving beyond the direct developmental consequences of OREs, daily methods are also advantageous in capturing dynamic protective processes and contexts related to OREs (Jackson et al., 2021). In this regard, existing studies has examined daily fluctuations in individual and contextual protective factors such as sleep (Wang & Yip, 2020), ethnic/racial identity (Seaton & Iida, 2019; Yip et al., 2022), ethnic/racial socialization (Cheeks et al., 2020), and social support (Chen et al., 2022), demonstrating the moderating role of these factors for the daily associations between OREs and adolescent outcomes. Research has also investigated more stable contexts such as school diversity in conditioning the daily associations between discrimination and adjustment (Seaton & Douglass, 2014). By capturing how protective factors and contexts are associated with changes within individuals from one timepoint to another, these findings provide better insights into the actual dynamic processes occurring within individuals and, thus, are one step closer to causality (Hamaker & Wichers, 2013). In doing so, these findings also provide stronger evidence for effective levers of change that can improve BIPOC youth adjustment in everyday life.

Moving forward, our knowledge of the protective processes related to OREs can be enhanced by attending to factors beyond individual and family ethnic/racial assets, such as ethnic/racial identity and socialization (Neblett et al., 2012). More work is needed to understand how protective processes in other contexts (e.g., school, neighborhood, and online) operate in tandem with OREs on a daily basis to influence youth adjustment. For example, Chen et al. (2022) show that teacher support (but not parent or peer support) on the same day buffers the influence of discrimination on adolescent sleep that night. There is also an increasing recognition of youth activism in combat against discrimination, racism, and oppression (Sánchez et al., 2022 in this special issue), particularly in online spaces (Baskin‐Sommers et al., 2021). Understanding how these experiences may intersect with daily OREs is an area ripe for future research.

We also need more research to investigate the various timing mechanisms via which these protective processes operate. For example, using a stress and coping framework (Bolger & Zuckerman, 1995; Ong et al., 2009), Yip et al. (2022) examined the influence of ethnic/racial identity on adolescents’ (1) exposure to experiences of discrimination, (2) reactivity to discrimination on the same day, and (3) recovery from discrimination on the next few days. Cheeks et al. (2020) examined the differential moderating effects of previous‐day versus same‐day ethnic/racial socialization for the daily associations between discrimination on youth outcomes. These investigations are particularly informative for practices in terms of when protective factors are most necessary (i.e., when BIPOC youth may be most vulnerable to OREs; Seaton & Douglass, 2014) and when they are most effective.

In addition to protective processes, daily methods also allow for a nuanced investigation of the immediate context that gives rise to everyday OREs. For example, Ortega‐Williams et al. (2022) in this collection of special issues investigated routine activity locations (e.g., at school, on the bus, and community center) and Black youths’ perceptions of racism using an experience sampling design, providing valuable insights in terms of where OREs occur in everyday life and which situations may be particularly risky for BIPOC youth. Relatedly, there is also evidence highlighting the dynamic, context‐dependent nature of protective processes such as ethnic/racial socialization based on observational methods (Smith‐Bynum et al., 2016). Research using daily methods that looks into these contextual nuances would be particularly useful to understand how these processes and their protective effects vary across daily situations and contexts.

Finally, more research is needed to understand the more stable individual and contextual factors that either buffer or exacerbate the everyday influences of OREs, essentially identifying for whom and in what contexts these experiences may be most challenging, as well as which factors can be targeted to lessen the daily challenges of OREs. For example, research has documented how schools and neighborhoods are important contexts for adolescents’ experiences of discrimination (e.g., Davis et al., 2022; Janssen et al., 2022; White et al., 2022 in this special issue). Structural‐level oppression and racism are also critical, broader context that should be considered (Williams et al., 2019). Yet, to date, we have very little information on how varying contexts can mitigate, break, or intensify the daily influences of OREs on BIPOC youth adjustment (see exception in Seaton & Douglass, 2014). These investigations would require collecting intensive data on a larger scale with sufficient variation in the contexts examined. We may have a better chance to achieve this goal by building stronger collaborations across data collection efforts seeking to understand the daily implications of OREs.

Conclusions

Research has just started to unpack young people’s everyday experiences of discrimination, racism, and oppression, with many gaps and unknown areas awaiting innovative and creative scientific investigations. With the increasing applications of advanced data collection technologies and methodological techniques, we are at a time when daily methods can now be more easily implemented in research on BIPOC youth development. These methods should not be considered as an either‐or option with methodologies employed by the majority of the existing research (e.g., longitudinal designs, qualitative, or mixed methods), which has created an important knowledge base for BIPOC youth development to date. Instead, by integrating daily methods into these diverse methodologies, research has the potential to better measure, investigate, and contextualize young people’s everyday experiences and, therefore, to inform effective, innovative practices that can be used to improve BIPOC youth development not only on a daily basis but also over the long term.