Discrimination and Drive: How Mental Health Shapes Educational Values in Latinx Adolescents

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Friday 7:45 am - Gold 3
  In Roundtable Session: Cultivating Resistance and Belonging: Latinx Educational Pathways, Counterspaces, and Cultural Survival

Abstract

US Latinx adolescents face ethnic discrimination that undermines their academic motivation and mental health. Guided by García Coll’s Integrative Model and the Psychological Mediation Framework, this study quantitatively examined whether depressive and social anxiety symptoms mediated the link between perceived ethnic discrimination and educational values among 549 Latinx middle school adolescents. Findings revealed that depressive symptoms negatively mediated this relationship, whereas social anxiety symptoms unexpectedly showed a positive association with Latinx adolescents’ educational values. These results highlight the complex role of internalizing symptoms in shaping Latinx adolescents’ values placed on their education whilst contending with ethnic discrimination. Future recommendations for school and mental health providers to foster adaptive coping and resilience among Latinx adolescents facing discrimination will be discussed.

Authors

• Manuel Teran Hernandez, University of Maryland

• Richard Quentin Shin, University of Maryland

• Carlos Santos, University of California - Los Angeles