RECASTing Racial Coping Stress in School: Self-Efficacy as Buffer for Adolescent Agency

• In Event: Thursday Roundtable Session 12:40 pm
  In Roundtable Session: Racial Stress and Coping (Table 32)

Abstract

The detrimental impacts of racism and racial stress on youth academic and social functioning are significant. Little is known about how adolescents manage racial stress or develop agency to resolve discriminatory racial encounters. Developing students’ racial coping self-efficacy and skills can promote well-being. RECAST theory was used to examine relationships among several school racial coping factors: self-efficacy, agency, stress, vigilance, and belonging for 645 high school students. Analyses demonstrated that racial coping self-efficacy reduced the negative influence of racial coping stress on student racial agency in resolving racial conflicts in school, particularly for Latinx students. Implications for advancing RECAST theory-based interventions to help adolescents develop racial agency to resolve traumatic racial events in schools are discussed.

Authors

• Howard C. Stevenson, University of Pennsylvania

• Emily Aisenbrey, University of Pennsylvania

• Sasha C. Mejia-Bradford, University of Pennsylvania