Matching Items (4)
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- All Subjects: Individual & Family Studies
- Creators: Kochenderfer-Ladd, Becky
Description
Recent reports have indicated that there are both mental health and educational disparities between Latino youth and their European American counterparts. Specifically, Latin youth are at a heightened risk for negative mental health outcomes in comparison to their non-Latino youth (e.g., Eaton et al., 2008). Further, 16.7% of Latino adolescents dropped out of high school compared to 5.3% of European American youth over the past several decades (1960-2011; U.S. Department of Education, 2013). Mexican American (M.A. youth in particular, have the lowest educational attainment among all Latino ethnic groups in the U.S. (U.S. Census Bureau, 2010). While these mental health and educational disparities have often been attributed to discrimination experiences that Latino youth encounter, there is also consistent empirical evidence linking discrimination with these maladjustment problems. These studies confirmed that discrimination directly related to depressive symptoms (e.g., Umana-Taylor et al., 2007), externalizing behaviors (Berkel et al., 2010), self-esteem (e.g., Zeiders et al., 2013), and academic outcomes (e.g., Umana-Taylor et al., 2012). Few studies to date have examined the underlying mechanisms (i.e., moderation and mediation) that help us to better understand resiliency paths for those Latino youth that display positive adjustment outcomes despite being faced with similar discrimination encounters that their maladjusted peers face. Therefore, the following two studies examined various mechanisms in which discrimination related to adjustment to better understand potential risk and resiliency processes in hopes of informing intervention research. Paper 1 explored cultural influences on the association between discrimination, active coping, and mental health outcomes in M.A. youth. Paper 2 examined how trajectories of discrimination across 5th, 7th, and 10th grades related to cultural values, externalizing behaviors, and academic outcomes in M.A. youth. Taken together, these studies provide a culturally informed overview of adjustment processes in M.A. adolescents who face discrimination in addition to identifying critical directions for future research in efforts to gaining a more contextualized and comprehensive understanding of the dynamic processes involved in discrimination and adjustment in M.A. youth.
ContributorsO'Donnell, Megan (Author) / Roosa, Mark W. (Thesis advisor) / Dumka, Larry (Committee member) / Gonzales, Nancy (Committee member) / Barrera, Manuel (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
Description
The purpose of this study was to investigate the role teacher-relational bullying schemas may have in influencing the likelihood of youth seeking teachers' assistance. The first goal of the study was to assess whether supportive and helpful teacher-responses to bullying schemas (TRBS) were associated with greater likelihood of involving teachers, and unhelpful TRBSs was related to lower likelihood of teacher seeking coping. The second goal was to examine possible differences in TRBS and likelihood of seeking help based on sex, grade, personal behavioral blame, personal aggression, and victimization. Towards these aims, data were gathered from 320 fourth and sixth grade students (152 boys; 168 girls) in the fall and spring of the academic year. MANOVA analyses revealed sex and grade differences, such as sixth grade boys were least likely to tell their teacher and most likely to blame their own behavior for being bullied than any other group. Results from a series of regression analyses found personal behavior blame and peer-directed aggression was related with less likelihood of telling. In addition, the association between parents or principal TRBS and telling the teacher was moderated by personal behavioral blame. Moreover, punishment predicted lower probability of telling concurrently and longitudinally.
ContributorsCortes, Khaerannisa (Author) / Kochenderfer-Ladd, Becky (Thesis advisor) / Ladd, Gary W. (Committee member) / Eggum, Natalie D. (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
In this dissertation Mexican American (MA) youths environmental risk contexts, HPA axis functioning and mental health symptomatology were investigated in two separate studies. In the first study, environmental risk contexts were examined utilizing a person-centered approach and focusing on MA adolescents' family, peer, and cultural risk factors in fifth grade (N = 750). Environmental contexts were then linked to mental health symptomatology in seventh grade. Results revealed three distinct environmental contexts: Low risk, Moderate risk-language, and High risk-peer. Youth in the High-risk peer context reported the highest levels of symptomatology; greater major depressive disorder (MDD), anxiety, conduct disorder (CD)/oppositional defiant disorder (ODD), and attention deficit hyperactive disorder (ADHD) symptoms than youth experiencing Low risk or Moderate risk-language context. Females, in particular, experiencing the High risk peer context appeared at greatest risk for MDD symptoms. Finally, adolescents in the Moderate risk-language context displayed similar levels of symptoms to the individuals in the Low risk context, with the exception of higher anxiety. This study suggested that MA youth live in unique environmental contexts and these contexts are differentially related to mental health symptomatology. In the second study, 98 MA youth participated in a three-day diurnal cortisol protocol in hopes of linking perceptions of discrimination and HPA diurnal cortisol rhythms. Results revealed that discrimination was related to greater overall cortisol output and marginally related to the cortisol awakening response and evening levels of cortisol. Results suggest that important physiological processes underlie the experiences of discrimination.
ContributorsZeiders, Katharine H (Author) / Roosa, Mark W. (Thesis advisor) / Doane, Leah D. (Committee member) / Dumka, Larry (Committee member) / Enders, Craig E. (Committee member) / Updegraff, Kimberly A. (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
Sibling relationships are important units of socialization during adolescence. These involuntary relationships consist of positive and negative relationship qualities (Buist & Vermande, 2014; Deater-Deckard et al., 2002; Updegraff et al., 2005a), and some dimensions of these relationships are less understood than other dimensions. One dimension in need of attention is that of sibling relational victimization, which includes behaviors aimed at harming one’s sibling relationship during a period in which interpersonal relationships are developmentally salient (Collins & Steinberg, 2006; Crick, 1995; Crick & Grotpeter, 1995). In my dissertation, I examine the associations between family and friendship dynamics and sibling relational victimization longitudinally during adolescence. In study 1, I examined the developmental change in sibling relational victimization experiences during adolescence, and tested the associations between parent-youth and sibling conflict and intimacy and sibling relational victimization longitudinally. Sibling structural characteristics were explored as moderators. Using longitudinal growth and multi-level modeling, I found that sibling relational victimization decreased across adolescence for both siblings, with younger siblings reporting higher frequency of sibling relational victimization relative to older siblings. On a general level, parent-adolescent and sibling intimacy and conflict were associated with sibling relational victimization, albeit in different ways for mixed- and same-gender dyads and older and younger siblings. Overall, findings from study 1 highlight the importance of examining parent-youth and sibling relationship dynamics, the vulnerability of younger siblings as victims of sibling relational victimization, and the interplay of sibling gender dynamics and father-youth relationships on sibling relational victimization experiences in adolescence.
In study 2, I examined whether sibling relational victimization and negativity moderate the associations between parent-adolescent conflict and friendship control, conflict, and perspective taking in adolescence. Variation by sibling birth order and gender also was explored. Using path analytic models, I found that mother-adolescent, sibling, and friendship dynamics were interlinked, such that mother-adolescent conflict in combination with sibling negativity and sibling relational aggression were associated with friendship outcomes, albeit differently by sibling gender and friendship outcome. Findings from study 2 suggest the importance of addressing negative mother-adolescent and sibling relationship dynamics in prevention and intervention curricula aimed at promoting positive friendship dynamics during adolescence.
ContributorsSarama, Annabella Gallagher (Author) / Updegraff, Kimberly (Thesis advisor) / Kochenderfer-Ladd, Becky (Committee member) / Thompson, Marilyn (Committee member) / Bradley, Robert (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2021