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Discrimination and Mexican-Origin Adolescents’ Adjustment: The Moderating Roles of Adolescents’, Mothers’, and Fathers’ Cultural Orientations and Values

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Abstract

Drawing on García Coll et al.’s integrative framework and the risk and resilience model, this study examined the relationships between adolescents’ perceived discrimination and psychosocial adjustment and the moderating roles of adolescents’, mothers’, and fathers’ cultural orientations and values, and adolescent gender in a sample of 246 Mexican-origin families. Using multilevel modeling with data from mothers, fathers, seventh graders (M age = 12.8 years; SD = .57 year) and older siblings (M age = 15.7 years; SD = 1.5 years), findings revealed that perceived discrimination was positively related to depression, risky behaviors, and deviant peer affiliations. In addition, parents’ cultural orientations and values and adolescent gender moderated the relationships between perceived discrimination and some indicators of adjustment. These findings suggest that parents’ cultural orientations and values can serve as protective and vulnerability factors in the associations between Mexican-origin adolescents’ perceived discrimination and their psychosocial adjustment.

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Acknowledgments

We are grateful to the families and adolescents who participated in this project, and to the following schools and districts who collaborated: Osborn, Mesa, and Gilbert school districts, Willis Junior High School, Supai, and Ingleside Middle Schools, St. Catherine of Sienna, St. Gregory, St. Francis Xavier, St. Mary-Basha, and St. John Bosco. We thank Nancy Gonzales, Roger Millsap, Jennifer Kennedy, Lorey Wheeler, Devon Hageman, Lilly Shanahan, Sarah Killoren, Shawna Thayer, and Emily Cansler for their assistance in conducting this investigation. Funding was provided by NICHD R01HD39666 (Kimberly Updegraff, Principal Investigator, and Susan M. McHale and Ann C. Crouter, co-principal investigators, Mark Roosa, Nancy Gonzales, and Roger Millsap, co-investigators) and the Cowden Fund to the School of Social and Family Dynamics at ASU. The majority of the work presented here was completed at Arizona State University.

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Correspondence to Melissa Y. Delgado.

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Table 5 Multi-level model equations

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Delgado, M.Y., Updegraff, K.A., Roosa, M.W. et al. Discrimination and Mexican-Origin Adolescents’ Adjustment: The Moderating Roles of Adolescents’, Mothers’, and Fathers’ Cultural Orientations and Values. J Youth Adolescence 40, 125–139 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-009-9467-z

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