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- All Subjects: Mexican American teenagers
- Creators: Barrera, Manuel
- Creators: Kulis, Stephen
Description
ABSTRACT The relationships between adaptive and maladaptive aspects of gender roles in predicting substance use were examined in a sample of 955 (450 boys, 505 girls) Mexican American 7th and 8th grade adolescents participating in a school-based substance use intervention. The moderating effect of linguistic acculturation, the mediating effects of antisociality, depressive symptoms, and adaptive and avoidant coping on gender role-substance use relationships were examined. Correlational and path analyses supported the Functional Model of Gender Roles that considers these roles as adaptive or maladaptive social coping strategies. For boys, the path analyses yielded significant direct paths from aggressive masculinity to composite alcohol, cigarette, and marijuana use measures, with all other effects of gender roles on substance use operating through the mediators. Bootstrapped mediation tests yielded significant indirect paths, where for boys the positive relationships between assertive and aggressive masculinity with substance use and the negative relationship of affective femininity with substance use were mediated through antisociality, which is predictive of increased substance use. For girls, the positive relationship between aggressive masculinity with cigarette and alcohol use and the negative relationship of affective femininity with alcohol and cigarette use were also mediated by adaptive coping, which is predictive of decreased substance use. A different set of significant indirect paths through avoidant coping connected assertive masculinity and submissive femininity to alcohol use for boys. For boys, the paths from affective femininity to antisociality and adaptive coping were found to be moderated by linguistic acculturation, with the negative correlation of affective femininity with antisociality and positive correlation of this gender role with adaptive coping being stronger in boys low in acculturation. In turn, the pathway from this acculturation by affective femininity interaction to substance use was found to be mediated by antisociality. The present analyses confirmed the importance of gender roles and their interaction with acculturation in predicting substance use in Mexican American adolescents. The analyses also were important in delineating functional mechanisms through which these gender roles have their effects, with implications for the design of interventions to reduce substance use in this population.
ContributorsNagoshi, Julieann Lynn (Author) / Kulis, Stephen (Thesis advisor) / Marsiglia, Flavio (Committee member) / Gillmore, Mary (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
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
Mexican American adolescents report high rates of internalizing symptomatology and alcohol use. However, very little research has explored to what extent internalizing distress may contribute to alcohol use among this population. The current study utilized longitudinal data from a community sample of Mexican American adolescents (n=626, 51% female) to test a series of hypotheses about the role of internalizing distress on alcohol use and misuse. Specifically, this study used a bifactor modeling approach to investigate (1) whether different forms of internalizing distress are composed of common and unique components; (2) whether and to what extent such components confer risk for alcohol use; and (3) whether youth cultural orientation plays a role in these associations. Confirmatory factor analyses revealed that a bifactor model with a general factor and three specific factors (depressed mood, general worry, social anxiety) provided good fit to the data. The general distress factor was significantly associated with past month alcohol use but not binge drinking. However, these effects were conditional based on level of acculturation. Differential relations were found between the specific factors of internalizing distress and alcohol use. Depressed mood predicted past month alcohol use among girls; social anxiety negatively predicted past three month binge drinking among boys. Overall, results highlight the multidimensional nature of internalizing distress and suggest that both common and unique components of internalizing distress may be relevant to the etiology of alcohol use among Mexican-American adolescents. Findings underscore the importance of considering cultural orientation as a moderating factor when investigating substance use among Hispanic youth. Implications for future research examining the etiological relevance of the internalizing pathway to alcohol use among Hispanic adolescents are discussed.
ContributorsNichter, Brandon (Author) / Gonzales, Nancy (Thesis advisor) / Chassin, Laurie (Committee member) / Barrera, Manuel (Committee member) / Tein, Jenn (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2018