Research

Dr. Onyewuenyi’s research examines the social, cultural, and institutional processes that shape the experiences and development of Black adolescents and emerging adults across the Black diaspora. Her work considers how race, ethnicity, immigration, and identity intersect with educational and institutional contexts, with particular attention to variation within Black communities and the distinct and shared experiences of Black American and Black immigrant populations.

Across her substantive and methodological work, she is interested in both what patterns emerge in people’s experiences and how researchers can study those patterns while remaining attentive to context, complexity, and difference. This commitment informs research spanning identity and immigration, educational inequality and well-being, social and cultural development, and methodological innovation.

Her research program is organized around four interconnected strands: Race, Immigration & Identity Across the African Diaspora; Structural Inequality, Education & Well-Being; Culture, Peers & Social Development; and Quantitative Ethnography & Methodological Innovation. Together, these strands examine how identities, relationships, institutions, and systems of inequality shape development, and how methodological approaches can better represent the complexity of those processes.For a detailed overview of her publications view her curriculum vitae (CV). 

Key Research Areas

Dr. Onyewuenyi’s researchprogram is organized around four interconnected strands:

  • Race, Immigration & Identity Across the African Diaspora

  • Structural Inequality, Education & Well-Being

  • Culture, Peers & Social Development

  • Quantitative Ethnography & Methodological Innovation

Race, Immigration & Identity Across the African Diaspora

Dr. Onyewuenyi examines how Black adolescents and emerging adults understand and negotiate race, ethnicity, immigration, and identity across educational and other social contexts. Central to this work is challenging the tendency to treat Black populations as homogeneous. Her research investigates how Black American, African immigrant, Caribbean immigrant, and other Black diasporic communities may encounter shared processes of racialization and anti-Black racism while simultaneously navigating distinct ethnic, cultural, national, and migration-related experiences.

This work examines questions of racial and ethnic identity development, racialization, Black immigrant incorporation, intra-Black dynamics, belonging, racial solidarity, and boundary-making. Her work is particularly concerned with how Black immigrant-origin young people come to understand Blackness in the United States and how ethnicity and immigration shape the meaning and consequences of racial identity.

Selected Scholarship

  • George Mwangi, C. A., & Onyewuenyi, A. C. (2025). Hidden in Blackness: Being Black and being an immigrant in U.S. schools and colleges. Teachers College Press. https://doi.org/10.65528/9780807782996 

  • Kiramba, L. K., Onyewuenyi, A. C., Kumi-Yeboah, A., & Sallar, A. M. (2020). Navigating multiple worlds of Ghanaian-born immigrant adolescent girls in U.S. urban schools. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 77, 46–57. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijintrel.2020.04.003 

  • Kumi-Yeboah, A., Onyewuenyi, A. C., & Smith, P. (2021). Teaching Black immigrant students in urban schools: Teacher and peer relationships and academic performances. The Urban Review, 53, 218–242. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11256-020-00570-2

Structural Inequality, Education & Well-Being

A second strand of Dr. Onyewuenyi’s research investigates how interpersonal and institutional forms of inequality shape educational and psychological outcomes. Rather than locating educational achievement or well-being solely within individuals, this work examines the social and institutional conditions in which young people learn and develop. Her research considers how anti-Black racism, racial discrimination, colorism, race-related stress, and other structural conditions intersect with individual and collective resources—including racial identity, racial solidarity, John Henryism, social relationships, and campus engagement—to shape academic performance, belonging, mental health, and well-being. A central goal of this work is to understand not only exposure to inequity, but also when strategies commonly understood as protective may carry different benefits or costs depending on students’ identities and institutional contexts.

Selected Scholarship

  • Onyewuenyi, A.C., Herres, J., Villareal, L., Defreitas, S., & Obilor, T.I. (2026). Protective or Risk Factor? John Henryism and Campus Engagement's Impact on Black Emerging Adults. Journal of Black Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1177/00957984261456060 

  • Onyewuenyi, A. C., Villareal, L., Defreitas, S., Obilor, T. I., & Herres, J. (2026). Balancing Strength and Strain: A Clinical Perspective on John Henryism and Campus Engagement in Transition-Aged Black Youth. Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 65(4), 472–476. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaac.2025.08.001 

  • Herres, J., Ortelli, O., Rodriguez, I., & Onyewuenyi, A. C. (2023). Risk and protective factors associated with perceived stress and depressive symptoms among college students during the COVID-19 pandemic.  Journal of American College Health, 1-12. https://doi.org/10.1080/07448481.2023.2266039

Outline of human body in lime green

Culture, Peers & Social Development

Dr. Onyewuenyi also studies how culture, social norms, and peer relationships shape racially and ethnically diverse adolescents’ social and moral development. This research examines how teens interpret and respond to interpersonal conflict, peer victimization, harm, and intervention—and how culturally situated norms influence judgments about appropriate responses. Her collaborative work has investigated revenge and reconciliation, bystander intervention, gratitude, aggression, reciprocity, moral emotions, and honor, face, and dignity norms among ethnically and culturally diverse adolescents. Across this work, she examines development as a fundamentally social and cultural process: teens make decisions not in isolation, but in relation to peers, communities, cultural expectations, and the social meanings attached to their actions.

Selected Scholarship

  • Nguyen, H., Frey, K. S., Lin, H., & Onyewuenyi, A. C. (2025). Gratitude for bystander action varies by peer intervention and social norms. School Psychology Review, 54(1), 98–104. https://doi.org/10.1080/2372966X.2023.2236008 

  • Frey, K. S., Onyewuenyi, A. C., Hymel, S., Gill, R., & Pearson, C. R. (2021). Honor, face, and dignity norm endorsement among diverse North American adolescents: Development of a social norms survey. International Journal of Behavioral Development, 45(3), 256–268. https://doi.org/10.1177/0165025420949690

  • Frey, K. S., Onyewuenyi, A. C., Higheagle Strong, Z., & Waller, I. A. (2021). Cultural systems and the development of norms governing revenge and retribution. In H. Recchia & C. Wainryb (Eds.), Retribution and revenge across childhood and adolescence. Cambridge University Press.

  • Frey, K. S., Higheagle Strong, Z., Onyewuenyi, A. C., Pearson, C. R., & Eagan, B. R. (2020). Third-party intervention in peer victimization: Self-evaluative emotions and appraisals of a diverse adolescent sample. Journal of Research on Adolescence, 30(3), 633–650. https://doi.org/10.1111/jora.12548 

Quantitative Ethnography Icon

Quantitative Ethnography & Methodological Innovation

Dr. Onyewuenyi’s methodological scholarship centers Quantitative Ethnography (QE), an interdisciplinary field that integrates qualitative, quantitative, and computational approaches to study culture, meaning-making, discourse, collaboration, and other social processes. Her work both applies and extends QE. As a methodologist, she is particularly interested in how computational approaches can be used without flattening complexity, obscuring difference, or separating patterns from the social and cultural contexts in which they emerge. Her methodological research examines issues including automated and human coding, analytic interpretation, researcher positionality, methodological integration, and the use of network-based approaches such as Epistemic Network Analysis (ENA). A growing area of this scholarship focuses on Critical Quantitative Ethnography (CritQE) and the integration of critical social theory with QE.

This work interrogates assumptions about objectivity, consensus, and validity; centers power, reflexivity, and epistemic justice throughout the research process; and explores methodological approaches that preserve multiple perspectives rather than treating interpretive difference as error. Dr. Onyewuenyi is also engaged in efforts to broaden access to QE and build methodological capacity, particularly among scholars using critical and equity-centered approaches to research.

Selected Scholarship

  • Onyewuenyi, A.C., Eagan, B., Espino, D.P., Bandiera, M., Tan, A. (2026). The Iterative Relationship Between Automated and Hand Coding Within a Quantitative Ethnography (QE) Framework: Methodological Integration and Practical Insights. In: Carmona, G., Lima, C., Santos, M.J., Benítez, H., Montero-Moguel, L., Galarza-Tohen, B. (eds) Advances in Quantitative Ethnography. ICQE 2025. Communications in Computer and Information Science, vol 2677. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-032-12229-2_7 

  • Garcia, N. M., Onyewuenyi, A. C., & Shaffer, D. W. (2026). Critical quantitative ethnography (CritQE): A pathway toward convergence research and equity. In G. Carmona, L. Montero-Moguel, C. Lima, M. J. Santos, H. Benítez, & B. Galarza-Tohen (Eds.), Advances in quantitative ethnography: 7th International Conference, ICQE 2025, proceedings (pp. 52–66). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-032-12229-2_4 

  • Frey, K. S., McDonald, K. L., Onyewuenyi, A. C., Germinaro, K., & Eagan, B. R. (2021). “I felt like a hero”: Adolescents’ understanding of resolution-promoting and vengeful actions on behalf of their peers. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 50(3), 521–535. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-020-01346-3 

Research Grants