About this srcd poster session

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Panel information
Panel 9. Family Context & Processes

Abstract

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Background: Racial discrimination is a pervasive stressor in the lives of Mexican-origin adolescents, often negatively impacting their psychological and academic adjustment (Garcia Coll et al., 1996). Mexican-origin parents also face the burden of discrimination, which may influence their child’s development. According to family systems theory (Cox & Paley, 2003), the family operates as an interdependent system, and thus, parents' discriminatory experiences may synergistically influence the effects on their children by either exacerbating or mitigating the effects of their child’s discrimination. Parents who face similar discriminatory experiences as their adolescents may be more likely to engage in racial socialization practices that prepare their children for navigating these experiences of discrimination. Therefore, the current study aimed to examine the potential buffering role of mothers’ perceived discrimination in moderating the negative association between adolescents’ perceived discrimination and their psychological (i.e., life meaning and resilience) and academic outcomes (i.e., school engagement). We hypothesized that adolescents whose mothers experienced higher levels of discrimination would show better psychological and academic outcomes in the face of discrimination compared to those with mothers perceiving low levels of discrimination.

Methods: Data were drawn from a two-wave longitudinal study of 604 Mexican American adolescents from and around a metropolitan city in central Texas (Mage = 12.5; 54% female; 75% U.S. native). Adolescents and mothers self-reported their discrimination experiences at Wave 1, and one year later (Wave 2), adolescents reported their sense of life meaning, resilience, and school engagement. Covariates included adolescent age, gender, nativity, mother educational level, and income, as well as the same adolescent outcomes from Wave 1.

Results: The results revealed significant main effects of adolescents' perceived discrimination on their sense of life meaning, resilience, and school engagement. A 2-way interaction indicated that mothers’ perceived discrimination moderated these effects on both socioemotional and academic outcomes. For adolescents whose mothers reported high levels of discrimination, their perceived discrimination was not significantly related to life meaning (b = -.12, p = .25). However, when mothers reported low discrimination, adolescents’ perceived discrimination was strongly, negatively associated with life meaning (b = -.49, p < .001). This pattern was also observed for resilience and school engagement. Adolescents whose mothers experienced high discrimination showed no significant associations between their own discrimination and resilience (b = -.13, p = .12) or school engagement (b = -.12, p = .13). However, for adolescents with mothers perceiving low discrimination, their perceived discrimination was negatively related to both resilience (b = -.35, p < .001) and school engagement (b = -.40, p < .001).

Discussion: These findings suggest that mothers’ experiences of high discrimination may protect adolescents from the negative effects of their own discrimination. Our findings underscore the importance of considering the family as an interrelated system, highlighting the need to examine multiple family members when examining adolescent development.

Author information

Author	Role
Cherita A. Clendinen, University of Florida	Presenting author
William H. Campbell, University of Florida	Non-presenting author
Deanna J. McRae, University of Florida	Non-presenting author
Su Yeong Kim, PhD, University of Texas at Austin	Non-presenting author
Shanting Chen, PhD, University of Florida	Non-presenting author

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