3-177 - Health, Education, and Self-Regulation among Ethnic Minority Emerging Adults

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Integrative Statement

Prioritizing education has the potential to reduce socioeconomic disadvantage, which may also reduce disparities in areas of health. Indeed, some scholars hold the view that “education policy is health policy,” given clear links between education experiences and individuals’ health across a variety of domains. However, such research is limited by a dearth of longitudinal studies, particularly on mechanisms that underlie the association between education and health. One developmental process that may explain linkages between education and health is self-regulation, which involves executive function, emotion regulation, and impulse control. This symposium will address health, education, and self-regulation, with a specific eye toward advancing knowledge on ethnic minority adolescents on the brink of adulthood.

Our symposium will include three longitudinal studies with ethnic minority teens. Setting the stage, the first paper tests whether self-regulation mediates the relation between academic scores in 5th grade and tobacco and alcohol use in 12th grade. The second study centers on the steps teens take during high school in order to enter college, with a focus on the role of self-regulatory skills in taking such steps. Turning attention to young college students, the third paper investigates how key indicators of health – BMI scores and waist circumference – relate to academic achievement and academic motivation. Taken together, these studies will shed light on the complex links among health, education, and self-regulation for ethnic minority emerging adults. The papers will be discussed by a senior professor with expertise on the transition from adolescence to early adulthood among ethnic minority individuals.

Sub Unit

• Education, Schooling

Chairs

• Christine Li-Grining, Loyola University Chicago

• Amanda L Roy, University of Illinois, Chicago

Discussant

• Margarita Azmitia, UC Santa Cruz

Individual Presentations

• Testing Self-regulation as a Mechanism Underlying Relationships Between Education and Substance Use During Emerging Adulthood - Presenting Author: Alysa N Miller, University of Illinois at Chicago; Non-Presenting Author: Amanda L Roy, University of Illinois, Chicago; Non-Presenting Author: Christine Li-Grining, Loyola University Chicago

• Self-Regulation and College Planning Among Low-Income, Ethnic Minority Students - Presenting Author: Christine Li-Grining, Loyola University Chicago; Non-Presenting Author: Amanda L Roy, University of Illinois, Chicago; Non-Presenting Author: Jinyoung Koh, Loyola University Chicago; Non-Presenting Author: Zahra Naqi, Loyola University Chicago

• Longitudinal Associations between Weight Indicators and Academic Achievement over the Latino College Transition - Non-Presenting Author: Reagan Styles Breitenstein, Arizona State University; Non-Presenting Author: Emma Lecarie, Arizona State University; Presenting Author: Leah D. Doane, Arizona State University