3-148 - Person-Centered Approaches to Understanding Context and Development in Latino Youth

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Integrative Statement

Latino youth, who represent the largest segment of the US ethnic minority population under the age of 18, develop within multiple contexts and with numerous factors at play. Understanding these youths’ developmental processes requires attention to these contexts, and theoretical and statistical approaches that allow for multiple factors to be considered. Guided by a person-centered perspective (Magnusson, 2003) and using qualitative and quantitative approaches, the proposed symposium brings together three papers that focus on areas relevant to Latino youth and explores how multiple factors co-occur within contexts to inhibit and/or promote Latino youth development.. In Study 1, the authors use latent profile analysis (LPA) to examine how dual-cultural adaptation stressors co-occur with experiences of discrimination in Latino young adults. Findings suggest unique patterns of stressors and differential links to youths’ depressive symptoms, risk taking, and prosocial behaviors. Study 2 focuses on Latino young adults’ work characteristics and uses LPA to identify four patterns of work context and their differential links to job satisfaction, substance use, depression, and physical health. In Study 3, the authors used a mixed-method to examine patterns of youths’ post-high school educational pathways during the economic recession of 2009. Narrative themes were combined to identify five groups who differed in their college engagement, problem-solving tactics, and perceived. Our discussant will (a) highlight the complexities of youths’ context and the ways that personal, socioeconomic, and cultural factors inform adjustment and (b) how person-centered analyses circumnavigate limitations of variable-centered approaches and provide a more nuanced picture of contexts.

Sub Unit

• Race, Ethnicity, Culture, Context

Chair

• Norma J. Perez-Brena, Texas State University, School of Family and Consumer Sciences

Discussant

• Russell B. Toomey, University of Arizona

Individual Presentations

• Latino Young Adults’ Co-Occurrence of Stressors and Well-Being: A Person-Centered Approach - Presenting Author: Katharine H. Zeiders, University of Arizona; Alexandra Davis, University of New Mexico; Gustavo Carlo, University of Missouri; Seth Schwartz, University of Miami; Linda G. Castillo, Department of Educational Psychology, Texas A & M University

• Mexican-Origin Youth’s Work Contexts: Implications for Well-Being and Health - Presenting Author: Lorey A Wheeler, University of Nebraska-Lincoln; Elizabeth Svoboda Svoboda, Nebraska Center for Research on Children, Youth, Families and Schools Department of Educational Psychology University of Nebraska–Lincoln

• Post–High School Educational Pathways in the Context of the 2007 Economic Recession: A Mixed-Methods Study of Risk and Resilience - Presenting Author: Norma J. Perez-Brena, Texas State University, School of Family and Consumer Sciences; Samantha Sang, Arizona State University, T. Denny Sanford School of Social and Family Dynamics; Sally I-Chun Kuo, Virginia Commonwealth University; Sue A. Rodríguez De Jesús, Arizona State University, Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College; Kimberly Updegraff, Arizona State University; Adriana Umana-Taylor, Arizona State University; Susan M. McHale, Department of Human Development and Family Studies, The Pennsylvania State University