About

Juan Del Toro is an Assistant Professor of Psychology at the University of Minnesota, affiliated with the McKnight Land-Grant. His research focuses on how situations contribute to adolescents’ resilience against racial and ethnic discrimination, examining the significance of discrimination from different perpetrators such as peers and law enforcement, as well as how racial/ethnic socialization from parents and educators influences adolescent wellbeing. He employs multi-method, multidisciplinary, and collaborative approaches to investigate the direct and intergenerational consequences of involvement in the criminal justice system, and explores opportunities like ethnic-racial identity and socialization to reduce the harmful effects of discrimination and unwarranted criminal justice involvement. Building on his prior work, Del Toro has begun examining how adolescents’ development of resilience may reflect evolutionary processes inherited from ancestors, particularly in response to structural racism. His lab investigates whether processes such as pubertal timing and intimate-relationship involvement serve as adaptive responses to social hierarchies like racism and heterosexism, and whether these adaptations are effective or potentially harmful in today’s social contexts. His educational background includes a PhD in Developmental Psychology from New York University Steinhardt School and a BA in Latin American Studies and Psychology from Bowdoin College. He has received numerous awards, including the Early Career Award from the Society for Research on Adolescence and fellowships from the Association for Psychological Science.

Research topics

• Sociology
• Social psychology
• Psychology
• Gender studies
• Developmental psychology

Selected publications

• The explorer's edge: Racial-ethnic identity exploration confers early adolescents of color with protection against racial-ethnic discrimination in a co-sibling control study

  Maryland Shared Open Access Repository (USMAI Consortium) · 2026-02-11

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Racial-ethnic identity development may help adolescents cope with racial-ethnic discrimination. Exploration reflects efforts to understand one's racial-ethnic background, whereas commitment represents a sense of connection to one's racial-ethnic group. The present study investigated whether these identity components moderated associations between discrimination and psychopathology symptoms one year later among 1,184 adolescents of color (ages: 11–12; 52% female, 48% male; 35% Black, 36% Latino, 3% Asian, 26% Other youth of color; Waves 3–4: 2019–2022) nested within 656 families. In sibling fixed-effect models, adolescents reporting greater racial-ethnic identity exploration than their siblings showed weaker associations between discrimination and psychopathology symptoms. Racial-ethnic identity commitment did not moderate these associations. Findings underscore the developmental significance of identity exploration as a protective process during early adolescence.The present study examined how developing a racial-ethnic identity helps adolescents of color cope with discrimination. Researchers compared siblings with one another in the same family and focused on two racial-ethnic identity dimensions: exploration (i.e., actively learning about one's race-ethnicity) and commitment (i.e., feeling a strong sense of belonging with one's racial-ethnic group). Results showed that adolescents reporting more discrimination than their siblings also reported more symptoms of psychopathology one year later. However, adolescents who engaged in more identity exploration than their siblings were less harmed by discrimination. In contrast, simply feeling a strong sense of commitment did not provide the same protection. Actively exploring one's identity may be a key source of resilience for early adolescents of color.

  PublisherDOI

• The explorer's edge: Racial-ethnic identity exploration confers early adolescents of color with protection against racial-ethnic discrimination in a co-sibling control study

  Child Development · 2026-01-06

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Racial-ethnic identity development may help adolescents cope with racial-ethnic discrimination. Exploration reflects efforts to understand one's racial-ethnic background, whereas commitment represents a sense of connection to one's racial-ethnic group. The present study investigated whether these identity components moderated associations between discrimination and psychopathology symptoms one year later among 1,184 adolescents of color (ages: 11-12; 52% female, 48% male; 35% Black, 36% Latino, 3% Asian, 26% Other youth of color; Waves 3-4: 2019-2022) nested within 656 families. In sibling fixed-effect models, adolescents reporting greater racial-ethnic identity exploration than their siblings showed weaker associations between discrimination and psychopathology symptoms. Racial-ethnic identity commitment did not moderate these associations. Findings underscore the developmental significance of identity exploration as a protective process during early adolescence.

  PublisherDOI

• Black mothers’ racial socialization practices in response to racial unrests in 2020.

  Cultural Diversity & Ethnic Minority Psychology · 2026-02-26

  articleOpen access

  OBJECTIVES: The 2020 racial uprisings surrounding the murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor impacted Black families in distinct yet diverse ways. Several factors conceivably shaped individual responses to this critical period, including one's age, gender, and familial roles. Guided by the phenomenological variant of ecological systems theory, this study specifically examined how a sample of Black mothers from a large urban Midwestern city constructed meaning of the racial unrest of 2020 in relation to their intersectional identities as women who are Black and who are also mothers of adult children. METHOD: This qualitative study utilized a phenomenological approach to examine how a sample of 24 Black mothers aged 46-71 experienced the 2020 racial unrest. Descriptive and thematic analysis of in-depth semistructured interviews suggests the 2020 racial uprisings were a precursor for a resurgence of "The Talk" in Black families. RESULTS: , further explained by three distinct subthemes including: (a) remembrance of the first "talk," (b) gendered socialization, and (c) insistence of faith. CONCLUSIONS: Study findings fill an important gap in the extant literature on racial socialization that assumes these specific parental practices stop once children enter adolescence or young adulthood, when in fact these data suggest parental racial socialization occurs across the life course, with adult children, and may be shaped by interactions between multiple ecological systems. These findings have important implications for the psychological well-being of older Black mothers. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

  PublisherDOI

• “We Have to Be in Fear”: Racism-Related Vigilance Among Older Black Mothers

  Psychology of Women Quarterly · 2026-01-20 · 1 citations

  article

  Racism-related stress has detrimental effects on the health of Black women. However, there is a gap in understanding of how this stress manifests in the lives of Black women at the intersection of gender, age, and motherhood identity. Using a constructivist research paradigm, we employed a phenomenological approach to examine how a sample of 24 Black mothers aged 46–71 from a large, urban Midwestern city reacted to the 2020 racial unrest as a specific yet universal macro-level racist event in the USA. Descriptive and thematic analysis of in-depth semi-structured interviews suggests this event was associated with the experience of racism-related vigilance. These results provide first-hand evidence of racism-related vigilance among older Black mothers, further depicted by two distinct subthemes: gendered racism-related vigilance and mind-body distress. The findings fill an important gap in the extant literature on the experience of racism-related vigilance specific to older Black mothers. These data suggest that the phenomenon of racism-related vigilance is experienced as gendered, shaped by motherhood identity, and is experienced as mind–body distress. These findings expand theory on the embodied experience of racism among Black mothers and have implications for Black mothers’ health and psychological well-being.

  PublisherDOI

• A case for change in policy: An integrative conceptual framework to promote more conversations about race/ethnicity in school contexts.

  American Psychologist · 2025-06-23 · 1 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding

  Since September 2020, a total of 206 local and state government entities across 43 states have adopted 301 measures, such as policies and resolutions, to prohibit teaching, curricula, and trainings about racism and critical race theory in K-12 education. Recent executive orders, including Executive Order No. 14190, have extended these measures at the federal level and originated from concerns that Black Lives Matter protests in 2020 seeded animosity and blame toward White youth for structural racism. These policies present challenges for culturally relevant education, which uses students' customs and lived experiences to improve classroom instruction and foster their critical consciousness. This opposition to critical race theory and culturally relevant education underscores the need to review and synthesize existing research on how different forms of school-based racial/ethnic socialization affect adolescent development. We present an integrative framework describing the cognitive, biological, and psychosocial mechanisms linking school racial/ethnic socialization with promotive and resilient outcomes among adolescents irrespective of their own race/ethnicity. School racial/ethnic socialization facilitates adolescents' identity development to understand and make meaning of their race/ethnicity, improves intergroup relationships, and supports their ongoing neurodevelopment that promotes executive functions. These interactions among mind, body, and context provide a comprehensive perspective on the multiple micro- and macropathways underlying the antecedents and consequences of school racial/ethnic socialization. This synthesis of multiple interrelated ecological processes provides concrete directions for future research and supports evidence-based arguments against educational policies that restrict racial/ethnic socialization in K-12 settings, as these restrictions may perpetuate existing racial/ethnic inequities in schools. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

  PublisherDOI

• Mortality cues in a high-resource context: Minority stress, suicide exposure, and pubertal development

  Behavioral and Brain Sciences · 2025-01-01

  article

  Abstract Building upon the two-tiered model of life history strategies introduced by Ellis, Reid, and Kramer (2024), we discuss avenues for future research that apply the theory to sexual and gender minority individuals. We propose that minority stress and suicide exposure may serve as extrinsic ambient mortality cues among sexual and gender minority (SGM) populations. We also identify a feature of pubertal development requiring more consideration.

  PublisherDOI

• Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis: Racial–Ethnic Discrimination and Young People’s Mental Health in Intensive Longitudinal Studies

  Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry · 2025-06-18 · 6 citations

  articleOpen access
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Which comes first, puberty or identity? The longitudinal interrelations between pubertal timing and sexual minority self-identification among early adolescents.

  American Psychologist · 2025-01-21 · 7 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding

  Sexual minority adolescents experience puberty earlier than their heterosexual peers. Early puberty is an indicator of premature aging and can be partly driven by chronic stress linked to discrimination. Nonetheless, the neural, cognitive, and social development linked to puberty enables adolescents to explore and understand their sexual identities. For sexual minority youth, does the stress from identity-based discrimination make them more likely to experience advanced pubertal timing, or is early pubertal timing the impetus for their self-identification with a sexual minority identity? To answer this research question, the present study leveraged longitudinal and national data to test the temporal ordering between sexual minority self-identification and pubertal timing among one sample of 7,818 unrelated adolescents and another sample of 4,050 adolescent siblings nested across 1,989 households in the United States. Across both samples, results illustrated significant bidirectional relations between pubertal timing and sexual minority self-identification. Adolescents who self-identified as sexual minorities experienced more advanced pubertal timing 1 year later, and adolescents who experienced more advanced pubertal timing were more likely to identify as sexual minorities 1 year later. While the longitudinal link between pubertal timing and later sexual minority self-identification may be a normal developmental process, the longitudinal link between sexual minority self-identification and subsequent advanced pubertal timing may be attributable to heterosexist stigma. The present findings underscore the need to mitigate prejudice so that all adolescents have the freedom to explore their identities without risks to their development. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

  PublisherDOI

• Early adolescents’ ethnic–racial discrimination and pubertal development: Parents’ ethnic–racial identities promote adolescents’ resilience.

  American Psychologist · 2024-11-01 · 8 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Ethnically and racially underrepresented adolescents are experiencing pubertal development earlier in life than prior cohorts and their White American peers. This early onset of puberty is partly attributable to ethnic-racial discrimination. To contribute to adolescents' resilience and posttraumatic growth in the face of ethnic-racial discrimination, parents' ethnic-racial identities may spill over into their parenting beliefs and practices. Parents who have a sense of belonging with and commitment to their ethnic-racial identities may be aware of discrimination and actively and consistently engage in practices that build supportive home environments to support their children's development in the context of ethnic-racial discrimination. To assess whether parents' ethnic-racial identity commitment predicted adolescents' resilience against ethnic-racial discrimination, we used multiple waves of survey data from adolescent siblings and their parents participating in the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development study (N-adolescents = 1,651; N-families = 805; 35% Black, 37% Latinx, 3% Asian, 25% other ethnically and racially underrepresented youth; 49% boys, 50% girls, 1% gender nonconforming youth; Mage = 11.49, SD = 0.51). Results indicated that adolescents who experienced more frequent ethnic-racial discrimination than their siblings showed more advanced pubertal development. Parental ethnic-racial identity commitment reduced the relation between discrimination and pubertal development within a family. Results suggest that ethnic-racial identity commitment in parents can protect children when they experience ethnic-racial discrimination. Building on extant propositions related to resilience (Infurna & Luthar, 2018), the present study amplifies the depiction of resilience, yields recommendations for analysis of future research, and provides implications regarding the role of ethnicity-race in familial practices. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Framing resilience linked to parental ethnic‐racial socialization as hidden: A hidden resilience conceptual framework

  Social and Personality Psychology Compass · 2024-07-01 · 9 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract Parental ethnic‐racial socialization is a source of adolescents' resilience against ethnic‐racial discrimination. Recent meta‐analyses have documented the promotive aspects of ethnic‐racial socialization (i.e., how ethnic‐racial socialization is directly related with adolescents' adjustment regardless of their discrimination experiences). However, extant empirical studies have produced conflicting results about the protection or moderating role of ethnic‐racial socialization, with studies suggesting that ethnic‐racial socialization buffers, exacerbates, or does not moderate the impacts of ethnic‐racial discrimination. We offer a reconceptualization of existing studies' findings and draw from existing theories to propose Hidden Resilience as a new conceptual framework that highlights how resilience and the positive benefits linked to ethnic‐racial socialization may not be noticeable when studies use psychosocial measures but is rather hidden “underneath the skin.” Conversations about racism may momentarily feel uncomfortable, upsetting, or stressful for youth, but such conversations can help youth learn how to cope with ethnic‐racial discrimination in the long term. Following a review of studies supporting our conceptual framework, we provide suggestions for future research to expand the field's understanding of resilience linked to ethnic‐racial socialization.

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Frequent coauthors

• Ming‐Te Wang

  49 shared

• Christina L. Scanlon

  21 shared

• Sylia Wilson

  University of Minnesota

  16 shared

• Dylan B. Jackson

  Johns Hopkins University

  14 shared

• Gianna Rea‐Sandin

  University of Minnesota

  14 shared

• Colin D. Freilich

  Twin Cities Orthopedics

  13 shared

• Diane Hughes

  New York University

  11 shared

• Robert Krueger

  New York University

  9 shared

Awards & honors

• Early Career Award, Society for Research on Adolescence (SRA…
• Fellow, Association for Psychological Science (APS), 2026
• Janet Taylor Spence Award, Association for Psychological Sci…
• The Palmer O. Johnson Memorial Award, American Educational R…
• Rising Star Award, Association for Psychological Science (AP…