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With this Special Section, the Asian Caucus of the Society for Research in Child Development seeks to promote a more inclusive, expanded, and holistic developmental science that can account for the diversity of developmental trajectories among Asian Americans. The articles elucidate, in turn, historical, conceptual, and methodological issues in studying Asian American child development. Although the articles foreground Asian Americans, the ideas should help advance theoretical and empirical work for other racial and ethnic groups, thereby contributing to a more valid understanding of child development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses influences of historical time and place on the development of children and youth of Asian descent in the U.S. Chinese, Indian, Hmong, and Filipino American experiences illustrate how history has defined race and racial stereotypes, determined cultural and community contexts, established pre-/postmigration circumstances, and influenced oppression and discrimination. Cross-cutting issues as applied to other ethnicities are discussed. By recognizing history's reach on child development, this article intends to inspire others to acknowledge and consider historical influences in their work. It also lays a foundation for the two ensuing articles within this Special Section, which present a novel conceptual framework (Mistry et al., this volume) and methodological recommendations (Yoshikawa, Mistry, & Wang, this volume) for research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The diversity of circumstances and developmental outcomes among Asian American children and youth poses a challenge for scholars interested in Asian American child development. This article addresses the challenge by offering an integrated conceptual framework based on three broad questions: (a) What are theory-predicated specifications of contexts that are pertinent for the development of Asian American children? (b) What are the domains of development and socialization that are particularly relevant? (c) How can culture as meaning-making processes be integrated in conceptualizations of development? The heuristic value of the conceptual model is illustrated by research on Asian American children and youth that examines the interconnected nature of specific features of context, pertinent aspects of development, and interpretive processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We briefly respond here to the commentaries to the Special Section focused on Asian American child development by Cheah, Lee, Beaupre, and Zhou, and McLoyd. We consider three questions raised in their comments. What does it mean to focus on Asian Americans? How should we examine development across the life course? How can we generate more policy- and practice-relevant research?. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prior to the 2021 American Psychologist special issue "Rendered Invisible: Are Asian Americans a Model or a Marginalized Minority?" (Yip et al., 2021), only seven articles on Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander (AANHPI) populations were published in the journal in 3 decades. The special issue interrogated sources of invisibility and marginalization of AANHPIs not only in the field of psychology but also in the broader national landscape. The current commentary provides a deeper dive into one of the primary drivers of AANHPI invisibility, anti-Asian biases encountered during the federal grant review process, which contributes to low funding rates and insufficient research on AANHPI communities. Despite comprising over 6% of the U.S. population, less than 1% of the National Institutes of Health's funding portfolio supports science on AANHPI populations. This qualitative study revealed thematic barriers encountered during National Institutes of Health grant reviews. A one-time survey was circulated to professional scientific networks to obtain open-ended responses regarding applicants' and reviewers' experiences proposing research with AANHPI samples, resulting in data from N = 16 respondents. Respondents were asked to indicate their role in the review process (e.g., investigator, applicant, reviewer, other) and to provide open-ended responses detailing experiences of bias. Thematic coding revealed six principal themes: (1) invalidation, (2) limited reviewer knowledge, (3) oppression Olympics, (4) White comparison groups, (5) model minority myth, and (6) homogeneity of AANHPI groups. Building off these themes, this commentary concludes with five actionable policy and institutional recommendations aimed at achieving a more inclusive national research enterprise for AANHPI investigators and communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]