Mechanisms Linking Peer Discrimination and Adolescents’ Behavioral, Affective, and Cognitive Bicultural Competence Development

• In Event: Education, discrimination, and positive youth development among Latinx populations

Abstract

U.S. society tends to observe a hierarchy in which social position factors like ethnicity-race influence the experiences, resources, and privileges of individuals, which in turn shape ethnic-racial minoritized and immigrant youth development (Garcıa Coll et al., 1996). Environmental risk factors and stressors may inform differential developmental patterns of youth’s cultural identities and competencies (Umaña -Taylor & Guimond, 2010). Particularly, experiences of ethnic-racial discrimination can trigger processes of identity development (Cross, 1995). Because discrimination is a reality for U.S. minoritized youth (Rosenbloom & Way, 2004), examining its potential influence on cultural identities and competencies development is important.

Prior work suggests that as discrimination increases, youth’s ethnic-racial identity (ERI) development also increases (Pahl & Way, 2006; Umana-Taylor & Guimond, 2010). These findings align with the phenomenological variant of ecological systems theory characterizing ethnic-racial identity achievement as an adaptive coping mechanism to environmental risk factors, such as ethnic–racial bias (Spencer, 1995). ERI achievement emerges from seeking information (exploration) and attaining clarity vis-à-vis one’s ERI (resolution; Umaña-Taylor et al., 2004). When youth encounter discrimination, they draw meaning from these experiences, which inform subsequent self-organizational processes, such as identity achievement (Spencer, 2006). Further, culturally informed theories have linked ERI achievement to the development of bicultural competence, or the ability to behaviorally, affectively, and cognitively manage bicultural demands (Garcia Coll et al., 1996; LaFromboise et al., 1993). Similarly, prior work suggests that ERI achievement is associated with host identity achievement (Gartner et al., 2014), and thus contributes to bicultural identity development. Additionally, youth who internalize and integrate cultural domains (e.g., identities, behaviors) across both cultures are more likely to develop bicultural competence (Benet-Martinez & Haritato, 2005; LaFromboise et al., 1993). These studies, however, did not directly assess associations among peer discrimination, ERI achievement, and behavioral, affective, and cognitive bicultural competence (i.e., bicultural facility, comfort, and advantage; Safa et al., 2019). These gaps substantially limit the scientific knowledge of the mechanisms via which youth develop bicultural competence, a normative developmental task for minoritized youth.

We examined a developmental model of peer discrimination and bicultural competence, such that peer discrimination would prompt increases in ERI achievement, and in turn, in behavioral, affective, and cognitive bicultural competence (see Table 1 for scale descriptions). These mediational mechanisms were tested prospectively (from x̅age = 12.80 to 15.84 to 17.38 years) in a sample of 749 U.S. Mexican-origin adolescents (48.9% female; 30% Mexico-born). Mediation analyses (see Figure 1 for results) revealed that adolescents’ 7th grade exposure to peer discrimination was associated with increases in bicultural facility, comfort, and advantage five years later (12th grade) via increases in 10th grade ERI achievement. Chi-square difference tests indicated that the paths between ERI achievement and each of the bicultural competence components varied in magnitude, Δχ2 (2) = 9.40, p = .009. Findings will be discussed relative to developmental models of ERI and biculturalism (Garcia Coll et al., 1996; Umaña-Taylor et al., 2014) and relative to expanding the range of cultural competencies to be considered in the context of social position and forces of stratification.

Authors

• M. Dalal Safa, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
  Presenting Author

• Rebecca M. B. White, Arizona State University

• George P Knight, Arizona State University