Cognitive Coping Strategies as a Buffer Between Discrimination and Academic Well-being

• In Event: Poster Session 02
  In Poster Session: PS 02 Topic -Diversity, Equity & Social Justice

Abstract

There are persistent gaps in educational achievement and attainment by race and SES (NCES, 2020), and studying the precursors of educational disparities is crucial because achievement gaps are linked to disparities in employment and health (PEW Research Center, 2014; Zajacova & Lawrence, 2018). Racial discrimination is negatively associated with a host of academic outcomes, such as grades and school engagement (see Benner et al., 2018 for meta-analysis) and is likely contributing to U.S. educational disparities. SES, like race/ethnicity, is a stratifier in U.S society, and SES-related discrimination is likely to have a similar influence on students’ academics as racial discrimination, although it has received little attention in the literature.
Of additional importance is investigating protective factors against discrimination. Active coping, or behavioral and cognitive efforts to deal with stressors, has been identified as protective against discrimination’s effects (Pascoe & Richman, 2009). General self-efficacy, psychological resiliency, and shift-and-persist are consistent with active coping, and evidence suggests these promote mental and physical health in the face of discrimination (Christophe et al., 2019; Lam et al., 2018; Watkins et al., 2011; Watson et al., 2018); however, little research has examined these potential buffers in the academic context or with SES-based discrimination, a focus of the current study.
Specifically, we investigate the longitudinal associations between both racial/ethnic and SES-based discrimination and academic well-being (school engagement, educational expectations, and grades) and assesses whether cognitive coping strategies (general self-efficacy, psychological resiliency, shift-and-persist) moderate the central pathways of interest. Given past research has shown racial and cultural variation in the sources and experiences of racial discrimination and in coping strategy utilization (Rosenbloom & Way, 2004; Wei, Heppner, Ku, & Liao, 2010), we also explore whether the main effects and buffering effects vary by student race/ethnicity and SES (see Figure 1).
Preliminary analyses utilized longitudinal survey data from 1,032 adolescents in the Southwest U.S. (40% White, 34% Latino, 13% biracial or other, 8% Asian American, 6% African American). Measures include student reports of educator- and societal-perpetrated discrimination tied to race/ethnicity and SES and shift-and-persist strategy usage, general self-efficacy, psychological resiliency, school engagement, educational expectations, and grades measured at multiple waves. Preliminary results indicated that educator-perpetrated racial/ethnic discrimination was negatively associated with school engagement, whereas educator-perpetrated SES-based discrimination was negatively related to students’ educational expectations (see Table 1). Shift-and-persist was also found to be positively associated with students’ school engagement; however, shift-and-persist did not moderate the relationship between discrimination and academic outcomes. Future analyses will integrate students’ self-reported grades and test the moderating effects of general self-efficacy and psychological resiliency as well as variation in relations by student race/ethnicity and SES. Results of the current study will shed light on the contribution of discriminatory treatment on educational disparities and provide insights on effective coping strategies to combat the negative impacts of discrimination in academics.

Authors

• Celeste C Fernandez, University of Texas at Austin
  Presenting Author

• Aprile D Benner, University of Texas at Austin
  Non-Presenting Author