Black Youths' perceptions of school cultural pluralism, school climate and the mediating role of racial identity.

Researchers have become interested in the school climate experiences of Black youth given findings of less positive evaluations of school climate in comparison to their other-race peers. School support for cultural pluralism, also referred to as school support for cultural diversity, has been regarded as one aspect of school climate, but is sometimes distinct from Black youth's ratings of general perceptions of school climate. This project sought to understand the relationship between Black students' perceptions of school support for cultural pluralism and perceptions of school climate. Structural equation modeling techniques were used to determine whether previous perceptions of school support for cultural pluralism predicted later perceptions of school climate in a sample of 336 Black adolescents (Mage = 13.74 years). Furthermore, racial identity was explored as the mechanism through which school support for cultural pluralism impacted school climate appraisals, and differences between Black boys (N = 151) and Black girls (N = 185) were tested. Results confirmed that Black youth who rated their school as being supportive of culturally pluralism had more positive ratings of school climate during the following school year after controlling for the previous year's school climate ratings. However, the mediating role of racial identity differed for Black boys and Black girls, underscoring the need for intersectional research for Black youth and the importance of racial identity. We conclude with a discussion regarding the importance of racial/ethnic identity and pluralism within the school context, as well as, the unique role of school psychologists as preventionists and advocates of change within schools.

Depressive symptoms in Latina mothers in an emerging immigrant community.

OBJECTIVES: Latina mothers in emerging immigrant communities experience heightened risk for depressive symptoms because of the convergence of multiple risk factors rooted in economic, cultural, and familial experiences. Previous research with Latina/o adolescents has found that discrimination, and not acculturative stress, predicts depressive symptoms; however, no research to our knowledge has examined the relative impact of both discrimination and acculturative stress in Latina mothers. METHOD: The present study expands this literature by examining how both universal (i.e., economic hardship and parent-child conflict) and cultural stressors (i.e., discrimination and acculturative-based family conflict) predict maternal depressive symptoms in a sample of 169 Latina mothers in an emerging immigrant context. RESULTS: Results found that the presence of universal stressors for Latina mothers does indeed significantly predict depressive symptoms, and that uniquely, 1 type of cultural stressor (i.e., acculturative-based family conflict) predicts depressive symptoms above and beyond the universal stressors. CONCLUSIONS: These findings indicate that it is important to examine how cultural stressors may have differential impact for youth and their parents; thus, more work should examine the impact of acculturative-based family conflict for Latina mothers. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).