Rebecca A. Robles-Piña

Self-Concept, Early Childhood Depression and School Retention as Predictors of Adolescent Depression in Urban Hispanic Adolescents:

The role that early school retention, early childhood depression and self-concept had on levels of depression in 191 urban Hispanic adolescents was investigated. This exploratory study used a purposeful sample to study relationships and thus causality cannot be inferred. Statistically significant gender differences were found for depression with females reporting more depressive symptoms and both Hispanic males and females reporting higher rates of depression than the national average. Overall retention rates were 42 percent, with the majority of students retained in kindergarten and 1st grade with a second peak in retention rates in the 8th and 9th grades. Retained students versus non-retained students had statistically significant differences in: (a) lower self-concept; (b) past feelings of depression; (c) GPA and (d) depression. Predictors of depression in order of contribution were: (a) self-concept; (b) early childhood depression; (c) retention and (d) gender. The findings in this study are generalizable only to the sample in this study and may not apply to adolescents in other ethnic groups. Implications for schools and school psychologists are noted.

School Resource Officers for Bullying Interventions: A Mixed-Methods Analysis

The number of school police officers, School Resource Officers (SROs), is increasing on school campuses to assist in preventing school violence, and in particular bullying. This mixed-methods study was conducted to compare the knowledge and perceptions of SROs (N = 184) hired by independent school districts (ISD SROs) and those contracted from law enforcement agencies (CSROs) about their knowledge and perceptions about bullying interventions. By comparison, ISD SROs were more aware than CSROs about knowledge of school bullying plans, the need for social skills training, enforcing existing school policies regarding bullying intervention strategies, and using more conflict resolution strategies. Additionally, ISD SROs were less likely to use punitive law enforcement strategies than were CSROs.

Depression and self-concept: personality traits or coping styles in reaction to school retention of Hispanic adolescents.

The purpose of this study was to investigate whether depression and self-concept could be construed as personality characteristics and/or coping styles in reaction to school retention or being held back a grade. The participants in this study were 156 urban Hispanic adolescents, ages 12–18, and of these, 51 or 33% had been retained in school. Students who had been retained reported a lower self-concept score, higher GPA, and higher rates of depression, and they were more likely to be male than students who had not been retained. The findings of this study indicated that self-concept was a personality characteristic that, due to its malleability, is also a coping style in regards to retention with this Hispanic adolescent population.

The Relationship Between Educational and Demographic Variables and Supervisor's Multicultural Counseling Competencies

Abstract A survey to investigate the level of multicultural counseling competencies of 250 randomly selected supervisors yielded a 34% response rate. The level of multicultural counseling competencies was collected using the Multicultural Counseling Inventory (MCI) and a form requesting demographic and educational information. Some of the findings were: (a) there was a moderate significant relationship between single course training (College Semester Courses and < 4-Hour Workshops) and the MCI score, (b) single course training (2-Day Workshops and 4-Hour Workshops) had a moderate significant relationship with multicultural awareness, and (c) infusion courses (Courses Integrated into the Curriculum) had a moderate significant relationship on counseling skills.

Predictors of Bullying Behavior: An Adlerian Approach

Bullying is a serious problem that affects schools, individuals, families, peers, and community systems. The 2005–2006 Health Behaviour in School-aged Children (HBSC; Iannotti, (2012) ICPSR28241-v1. Ann Arbor, MI, Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2012-02-29. doi:10.3886/ICPSR28241.v1) dataset (n = 2946) was used to determine the systemic risk factors that predicted bullying behavior within 30 days. Statistically significant findings were found, and 6% of the variance was explained by a combination of six predictors. Adolescents who (a) drank alcohol and smoked, (b) who felt their parents were almost always loving as well as those who treated them like babies, and (c) who had above average feelings about school and reported good teacher’s opinion about school performance were more likely to bully.