Nestor Tulagan, Ph.D.
Nestor Tulagan, Ph.D.
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    • Home
    • About Me
    • Research
    • Publications
    • Family Resources
    • For Rising Scholars
    • Awards & Honors
  • Home
  • About Me
  • Research
  • Publications
  • Family Resources
  • For Rising Scholars
  • Awards & Honors

Families, Achievement Motivation, & Identity Development among Minoritized Adolescents

I am deeply passionate about understanding the cultural assets families possess when supporting adolescents of color in their educational trajectories. Specifically, I examine how minority parents engage in many different forms of culturally-grounded educational support and their relations to adolescents' academic motivation & achievement, racial/ethnic identity, and psychological well-being.


I'm guided by developmental and cultural models that frame minority families as heterogeneous, expert facilitators of children's development. In doing so, we go beyond traditional models of parental involvement and family socialization and examine processes that are culturalsupportly specific and ecologically relevant to families of different minority groups.

View Dr. Tulagan's CV

Core Research Questions

1. How do minoritized families leverage their cultural assets when supporting adolescents in their academic and identity development?


2. What are the optimal conditions under which families can best promote minoritized adolescent development?


3. What does it mean for minoritized adolescents to "flourish" in today's world? How do families support adolescent flourishing?

Publications

Primary Projects

Family Math Involvement for Latinx Youth (FAMILY) Study

This project was awarded the National Science Foundation's SBE Postdoctoral Fellowship to Dr. Tulagan.


Leveraging Latinx parents' cultural funds of knowledge and challenging traditional models of parental involvement, this project aims to a) uncover a fuller set of mainstream and culturally grounded socialization strategies that Latinx parents use to help Latinx middle schoolers in math and b) examine the relations between parents' math support and adolescents' math motivational beliefs. We also examine how parents address adolescents' difficulties in math and parents' barriers to math support.

Read the Award Abstract

Academic and Talent Socialization of Black Adolescents

This project was awarded the National Science Foundation's Graduate Research Fellowship Program and was the focus of Dr. Tulagan's doctoral dissertation.


Using the Maryland Adolescent Development in Context Study data set, this project examines the ways in which Black mothers promoted the academic and talent development of their adolescent children, as well as prevented and minimized parents' risk concerns. 


We also examine patterns of socialization strategies Black mothers use to support adolescents' talent development in domains like academics, sports, arts, and music. We also explore whether these processes differ across adolescent gender, given gender discrepancies in academic and recreational talent development among adolescents.

Read Dr. Tulagan's Dissertation on Proquest

Constellations of Racial/Ethnic and Academic Socialization within Black Families

This project examines co-occurring processes of academic, cultural, and racial coping socialization and their links to Black students' academic motivational beliefs and racial/ethnic identity. We also examine the extent to which these links are stronger for adolescents who experience higher distress due to racial/ethnic discriminatory experiences from peers and teachers. 

Other Projects

Latinx Family Processes during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Developmental Trajectories of Socioemotional Learning

Developmental Trajectories of Socioemotional Learning

Guided by the family stress model, Dr. Tulagan collaborates with community psychologists to examine the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on Latinx parents' financial strain, mental health, co-parental relationships, media use with young children, and children's behavioral well-being. We examine the protective role of parents' individual a

Guided by the family stress model, Dr. Tulagan collaborates with community psychologists to examine the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on Latinx parents' financial strain, mental health, co-parental relationships, media use with young children, and children's behavioral well-being. We examine the protective role of parents' individual assets (e.g., sense of purpose, and optimism) in alleviating the negative impacts of COVID-19.

Developmental Trajectories of Socioemotional Learning

Developmental Trajectories of Socioemotional Learning

Developmental Trajectories of Socioemotional Learning

In multiple studies, Dr. Tulagan works with educational researchers on children's socio-emotional learning. We examine the developmental trajectories of important developmental competencies like work habits and self-control from early childhood (1st grade) to early adolescence (6th grade) and the extent to which these trajectories predict

In multiple studies, Dr. Tulagan works with educational researchers on children's socio-emotional learning. We examine the developmental trajectories of important developmental competencies like work habits and self-control from early childhood (1st grade) to early adolescence (6th grade) and the extent to which these trajectories predict middle adolescent competencies like academic achievement and prosocial behaviors as well as outcomes in early adulthood like college attainment and civic engagement. 

Research Partners

Copyright © 2023 Nestor B. Tulagan, Jr., Ph.D. - All Rights Reserved.

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