When asked about reactions to Donald Trump being president, a 16-year-old Black girl said, “I feel unsafe and not protected. The United States is supposed to be the land of the free but is really the land of racism.”
In contrast, a 16-year-old white girl said, “I think it’s OK … I do feel bad for minorities … I’m white however and come from a somewhat similar background so I will be alright.”
These two teenagers responded very differently to the racial climate created by Trump – during his first presidency. Research on adolescents during Trump’s first term takes on new relevance now that he is back in office.
As a scholar of adolescent development, I have studied U.S. teenagers for over two decades. When Trump took office in 2016, I was in the midst of leading a five-year study to understand how young people become civically engaged. My colleagues and I were tracking adolescents’ beliefs and behaviors over time, which gave us a unique opportunity to document changes after Trump was elected.
Focusing on 1,400 ninth through 12th graders, I hypothesized that adolescents would become more divided during Trump’s presidency, given the political divisions evident among adults in 2016. And, like other social scientists, my team and I did identify diverging worldviews about racism and inequalities among teenagers and increased discrimination.
Decades of research shows that adolescents are influenced in lasting ways by societal events and political shifts, such as the Great Depression, the Civil Rights Movement, the 9/11 terrorist attacks and changing presidential administrations. Likewise, the short-term impacts of Trump’s presidency identified by research may portend long-lasting effects for this generation of young people.
Diverging worldviews
In our study, young Trump supporters were more likely to be white and male and to have politically conservative parents, and less likely to be immigrants. Teenagers in our study who disapproved of Trump were more likely to be female and Latino, Black or Asian, to have politically liberal parents, and to have parents or grandparents who were immigrants. These groups were not just different demographically; they diverged in their worldviews about race and inequality over time.
Across Trump’s first year in office, young Trump supporters decreased their race consciousness – that is, their support for racial equity and inclusion declined. We measured race consciousness by whether high schoolers agreed with statements like “I show support for equal rights for people of all racial and ethnic backgrounds” and “I express concern about discrimination faced by racial and ethnic groups.”
Young Trump supporters also grew less aware of inequalities in society during this time frame, becoming less likely to endorse statements like “In America, certain groups have fewer chances to get ahead.”
Conversely, young Trump detractors increased their race consciousness and…
