The Influence of Ethnic Discrimination and Ethnic Identification on African American adolescents' School and Socioemotional Adjustment

TLDR

The study investigates whether school‑based racial discrimination predicts changes in academic and psychological functioning among African American adolescents and whether ethnic identity mitigates these effects. Data were collected longitudinally at the start of 7th grade and at the end of 8th grade from an economically diverse sample of African American adolescents. Racial discrimination at school predicted declines in academic performance, self‑concepts, task values, and mental health, and increased association with disengaged peers, while strong ethnic identity buffered these negative effects.

Abstract

Do experiences with racial discrimination at school predict changes in African American adolescents' academic and psychological functioning? Does African American ethnic identity buffer these relations? This paper addresses these two questions using two waves of data from a longitudinal study of an economically diverse sample of African American adolescents living in and near a major East Coast metropolis. The data were collected at the beginning of the 7th grade and after the completion of the 8th grade. As expected, experiences of racial discrimination at school from one's teachers and peers predicts declines in grades, academic ability self-concepts, academic task values, mental health (increases in depression and anger, decreases in self-esteem and psychological resiliency), and increases in the proportion of one's friends who are not interested in school and who have problem behaviors. A strong, positive connection to one's ethnic group (our measure of ethnic identity) reduced the magnitude of the association of racial discrimination experiences with declines in academic self-concepts, school achievement, and perception of friends' positive characteristics, as well as the association of the racial discrimination experiences with increases in problem behaviors.