The Confidence Study--S.P.A.C.E. to Grow
Every child needs room to grow. This study, grounded in research on Black children and youth, names five conditions that make that possible--to be Seen, Protected, Affirmed, Connected and Equipped.
S.P.A.C.E. to Grow See the Study.
S.P.A.C.E. to Grow
Five conditions that help children shine
Confidence helps children bring what they know, imagine, and can do into the world. But it does not develop under equal conditions — for many Black and brown children, the barrier is not who they are, but how they are perceived, treated, and supported. Hair is one of the earliest, most visible places children learn that lesson.
"We owe children S.P.A.C.E. to grow."
Hair diversity is one of the earliest and most visible ways children encounter messages about difference. Through comments, dress codes, media, peers, and even well-meaning adults, Black and brown children may learn that their natural hair must be explained, managed, corrected, or made more acceptable before they are fully recognized and valued.
Hair is not the whole story. It is one clear example of how identity, representation, belonging, protection, and access to opportunity can influence a child's willingness to participate, express themselves, and shine. Children should not be expected to navigate those conditions alone — adults, families, schools, and communities cannot guarantee confidence, but we are responsible for creating environments in which it has room to develop.
S.P.A.C.E. is Afrotagious's organizing framework, built from research specific to Black children and Black youth, where the evidence base for each condition is strongest.
Seen
A child forms their self-image early, shaped by what they see reflected in the world around them.
Self-image begins with what a child is shown. In the 1940s, Kenneth and Mamie Clark's Doll Test found that among the Black children studied, most who were shown identical dolls differing only in color assigned positive traits to the white doll and negative traits to the doll that looked like them — evidence entered into Brown v. Board of Education. In 2010, CNN's replication of the study, led by child psychologist Margaret Beale Spencer across 133 children, found a similar bias persisting, though less pronounced among the Black children in that sample than in the original. Contemporary research narrows the same question to hair.
Protected
No child should be disciplined, excluded, or made to feel less than for the way they look.
Protection is what institutions owe a child. A statewide review of Texas school districts found dress-code enforcement — which includes hair-texture and protective-style policies — falls disproportionately on Black students. The CROWN Act exists to close exactly this gap between a child and the institution meant to keep them safe.
Affirmed
Every child deserves to hear — early, and often — that who they are is enough.
Certain racial-socialization messages protect self-esteem when Black youth encounter discrimination. Among eighth-grade Black students, receiving more race-pride messaging from parents significantly softened the negative relationship between perceived discrimination and self-esteem. Related research has built validated tools for measuring how Black adolescents interpret stereotypical media images — the foundation for a growing body of work on how media representation shapes identity.
Connected
Children benefit from relationships in which they feel known, supported, and valued.
Affirmation does not have to come only from parents. Research examining racial socialization from non-parental adults — extended family, teachers, coaches, mentors — finds these figures also contribute meaningfully to how young people come to understand themselves. The extracurricular literature echoes this from another angle, identifying positive relationships with peers and with adult mentors outside the classroom as a distinct benefit of participation, separate from the skill being taught.
Equipped
Every child deserves the tools, the access, and the room to practice becoming who they already are.
Structured activities give children opportunities to practice, receive feedback, develop competence, and experience progress — and access determines whether a child can benefit from those opportunities at all. Children in dance and sports programs show higher self-perception scores than those in other extracurricular categories, evidence that the kind of access a child has shapes what they gain from it.
This edition focuses on Black children, where the evidence is strongest. Afro-Latino children likely face similar dynamics: colorism and texture-based bias carried through the term "pelo malo" ("bad hair") is documented across Latin American communities, largely through cultural commentary rather than child-specific research.
A child who trusts their own judgment is more willing to attempt something hard, more able to recover from a setback without being defined by it, and more secure in who they are — regardless of what a room tells them to be.
"An apparel brand will not close a wealth gap, rewrite school discipline policy, or undo a century of lending discrimination in a generation. Afrotagious doesn't claim to."
What can a dance bag, a hair band, or a T-shirt do? Give one more child one more place where they're seen as remarkable exactly as they are. That's the part Afrotagious can play.
References
Every source behind the S.P.A.C.E. framework, presented in full as cited in The Confidence Study, v1.0.
Clark, K. B., & Clark, M. P. (1947). Racial identification and preference in Negro children. In T. M. Newcomb & E. L. Hartley (Eds.), Readings in Social Psychology (pp. 169–178). Henry Holt.
Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 347 U.S. 483 (1954).
CNN. (2010, May 13). Study: White and black children biased toward lighter skin [Pilot study designed by Margaret Beale Spencer]. CNN.com.
cnn.com/2010/US/05/13/doll.study
Intercultural Development Research Association, in partnership with ACLU of Texas. (2025). Nondiscrimination in dress and grooming codes.
idra.org · Nondiscrimination in Dress and Grooming Codes
The Education Trust. Sounding the alarm on Black girls and school discipline.
edtrust.org/blog/black-girls-and-school-discipline
NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund. (2026). The CROWN Act [state legislative tracker].
naacpldf.org/crown-act
Harris-Britt, A., Valrie, C. R., Kurtz-Costes, B., & Rowley, S. J. (2007). Perceived racial discrimination and self-esteem in African American youth: Racial socialization as a protective factor. Journal of Research on Adolescence, 17(4), 669–682.
doi.org/10.1111/j.1532-7795.2007.00540.x
Adams-Bass, V. N., Stevenson, H. C., & Kotzin, D. S. (2014). Measuring the meaning of Black media stereotypes and their relationship to the racial identity, Black history knowledge, and racial socialization of African American youth. Journal of Black Studies, 45(5), 367–395.
doi.org/10.1177/0021934714530396
Charity-Parker, B. M., & Adams-Bass, V. N. (2023). Exploring Black youth's belief in racial socialization across parental and non-parental agents. Journal of Child and Family Studies, 32(10), 3213–3230.
doi.org/10.1007/s10826-022-02451-6
Mayasari, D. P., Julianto, J., & Wiryanto, W. (2025). Building children's self-efficacy through extracurricular activities in elementary schools. Journal of Innovation and Research in Primary Education, 4(2), 187–194.
doi.org/10.56916/jirpe.v4i2.1219
Bryzhak, N., Bopko, I., Chałas, K., Dubinina, O., & Tsybanyuk, O. (2024). Effectiveness of extra-curricular activities in the self-development of primary school students. International Journal of Education and Information Technologies, 18, 64–74.
doi.org/10.46300/9109.2024.18.7