Peer Discrimination and Adolescent Well-being: Congruence of Adolescents’ and Friends’ Perceptions of Interracial Climate

• In Event: 1-129 - Factors that Influence the Experiences of Racial Discrimination: From Individual and Contextual Lenses

Integrative Statement

Schools in the U.S. are increasingly ethnically diverse. Although this creates opportunities for interracial friendships, it also may subject adolescents to peer racial discrimination, which can be harmful to adolescents’ development (Benner et al., 2018). Garcia Coll’s integrative model (1996) suggests that there are “promoting” contexts that can protect adolescents from discrimination and promote positive development. In this study, we focus on interracial climates—the extent to which schools foster interactions between students of different racial groups—as a potential promoting context. Because individuals may view interracial climate differently, it is important to consider peers’ perceptions of interracial climate as well, as peers become more influential during adolescence (Brown & Larson, 2009). When adolescents and their friends have congruent perceptions of their school’s interracial climate, this shared experience may encourage more support to one another, which could promote positive well-being in the face of discrimination. In the current study, we examined whether adolescents’ and their friends’ perception of interracial climate would conjointly influence the association between discrimination and adolescent socioemotional and academic well-being.
The current study used peer network data from 252 eighth graders (50% female, Mage=14.38, SD=.46 at Wave 1) residing in the South (85% Latino, 11% African American, 5% other race/ethnicity). Adolescents self-reported their experiences of peer discrimination and their perceptions of interracial climate at Wave 1. Adolescents reported their socioemotional well-being (i.e., loneliness) and academic outcomes (i.e., shared academic activities with peers) at Waves 1 and 2. Friends’ perceptions of interracial climate were calculated by averaging the interracial climate ratings across participants’ five closest friends (as identified by peer nominations) at Wave 1. Covariates included adolescent gender, ethnicity, generational status, and parental education as well as the same adolescent developmental outcomes at Wave 1.
The results of 3-way interaction revealed that the relation between discrimination and both shared academic activities and feelings of loneliness were moderated by the conjoint influence of adolescents’ own and their close friends’ perceptions of the school interracial climate. Specifically, regarding shared academic activities (Figure 1), for individuals with friends who perceived congruently positive interracial climate, more discrimination was related to more share academic activities. However, for individuals with friends who held different perception of interracial climate (i.e., adolescent perceived positive while friends perceived negative interracial climate), more discrimination was related to fewer shared academic activities. A similar but distinct pattern was observed with adolescents’ feelings of loneliness (Figure 2). For adolescents with friends who held congruently negative perception of interracial climate, experiencing more peer discrimination was related to lower levels of loneliness; for adolescents with friends who held incongruent views of interracial climate, experiencing more peer discrimination was related to higher levels of loneliness.
Our findings suggest that congruent perceptions of interracial climate across adolescents and friends may be protective for adolescents’ academic and socioemotional outcomes when facing discrimination, whereas incongruent perceptions of interracial climate may exacerbate the detrimental effects of discrimination. Our findings also highlight the importance in considering peers as an important social context when examining adolescent development and discrimination.

Authors

• Shanting Chen, University of Texas at Austin
  Presenting Author

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

• Yijie Wang, Michigan State University
  Non-Presenting Author