Race is intricately woven into my personal history and identity, partly because I grew up in Alabama when Jim Crow laws kept a tight grip on institutions and core aspects of daily life. I came of age on the heels of institutional change that outlawed racial segregation and discrimination in public spaces and expanded African Americans’ access to opportunities in higher education. These occurred alongside social change that shifted away from Eurocentric conformity and celebrated Black culture and identity. In this chapter I situate within this broader sociohistorical context my pathway to a career in developmental science and my perspectives, intellectual pursuits, and contributions. I also discuss how these institutional and social changes shaped the discipline through their influence on the racial composition of doctoral programs, ascendant conceptual and ideological perspectives on African American children, adults, and families, and scholars of color engagement in professional organizational leadership and editorial activities.

Chapter 8 opens by asking readers to reflect on the attributes of someone who they find trustworthy and believable. It then describes three attributes that Aristotle described for credible people: practical intelligence, virtuous character, and goodwill. Modern research on people’s perceptions of scientific sources finds similar attributes: expertise, integrity, and benevolence. The chapter reviews ways that science communicators can show these attributes. For example, we need to understand the phenomenon we’re sharing; we need to be honest, which can include saying "I don’t know" when applicable; and we need to be respectful. Being clear is a sign of respect for our conversational partners, as is sincere listening. This chapter returns to a comparison of the deficit model and funds of knowledge approaches before discussing ways to handle opinions that contradict the scientific consensus or that are in some way offensive. The Worked Example concerns stereotypes. This chapter’s Closing Worksheet asks readers to identify three things about their demonstrations that they are confident about and three things that they do not know related to their demonstrations.

Chapter 4 opens by asking readers to compare learning in formal and free-choice situations. This proceeds to a core goal of conversations for public engagement, which is to make our exchanges interesting enough that people want to talk with us. This chapter compares two approaches to teaching and learning: A deficit model approach assumes that the learner is in some sense empty or flawed, while the funds of knowledge approach assumes that the learner has a rich base of relevant prior knowledge. The latter approach is encouraged so that a science demonstration begins by probing an audience’s interests and then using that as a hook and an organizing principle. Six strands of science learning are introduced, with emphasis on the strand referring to a learner’s interest and excitement. Practical considerations include recognizing that no single science demonstration is likely to hit all strands equally well. The Worked Example shows this with detailed comments on a demonstration of language lateralization. Because public engagement often occurs in free-choice situations, getting and keeping an audience’s interest is critical.