Sabine Elizabeth French

The Development of Ethnic Identity during Adolescence.

The development of ethnic identity is a critical facet of adolescence, particularly for adolescents of color. In order to examine the developmental trajectory of ethnic identity, African American, Latino American, and European American early and middle adolescents (N = 420) were assessed over 3 years. Two components of ethnic identity were assessed--group-esteem was found to rise for both early and middle adolescents; exploration rose for middle adolescents. African Americans and Latino Americans were lower in group-esteem but have greater increases than European Americans, particularly across a school transition. The course of ethnic identity development during early and middle adolescence, the role of school context, and the variability in developmental trajectories among racial and ethnic groups are discussed.

The impact of the transition to high school on the self-system and perceived social context of poor urban youth'

Examined the effects of the normative school transition to senior high school (n=330) on the self-system and perceived school and peer social contexts of poor, black (n=83), European American (n=115), Latino (n=105), and Asian American (n=27) youth in the public school systems of three Eastern urban cities. The only negative effect of the school transition on the self-system was a decline in grade point average (GPA). Concurrently, the school transition was perceived to be associated with changes in the school and peer contexts. Across the transition, students reported increased disengagement from school (i.e., increased social support and extracurricular involvement) and increased engagement with peers (i.e., decreased daily hassles and increased involvement). These changes in the school and peer microsystems, like the changes in the self-system, were also common across race/ethnicity and gender. In addition, transition-associated school changes, and in particular changes in daily academic demands/hassles and involvement in school activities, were associated with changes in the academic dimensions of the self-system (i.e., academic efficacy expectations and GPA). Results and implications for preventive intervention are discussed within a developmental mismatch framework.

Racial/Ethnic Identity, Congruence with the Social Context, and the Transition to High School.

The transition to high school may serve as a race/ethnicity consciousness-raising experience that stimulates the development of one’s racial/ethnic identity depending on newcomers’ racial/ethnic congruence with the student body and staff, as well as their perceived social transactions with the new school. The nature of this development was tested within samples of poor, urban, Black, White, and Latino students (n = 144). Racial/ethnic identity (group-esteem and exploration) and perceived transactions with school (academic hassles, participation, and social support) were assessed at the end of both the year prior to the transition and the transition year. The results suggested that changes over the transition to senior high school served as a race/ethnicity consciousness-raising experience for both Black and European American students but in dramatically different ways.

The Relationship of Ethnicity-Related Stressors and Latino Ethnic Identity to Well-Being.

Based on the risk and resilience model, the current study examined the effect of ethnicity-related stressors (perceived discrimination, stereotype confirmation concern, and own-group conformity pressure) and ethnic identity (centrality, private regard, public regard, and other-group orientation) on the well-being of 171 Latino American college students. The study also examined the moderating role of ethnic identity on the relationship between ethnicity-related stressors and well-being. Findings showed that stereotype confirmation concern significantly predicted less well-being, whereas a positive ethnic identity predicted greater well-being. Ethnic identity also moderated the effect of ethnicity-related stressors on well-being. Different patterns emerged for the moderating effect of different ethnic identity dimensions and different ethnicity-related stressors. Findings are discussed in terms of the acculturative and ethnic diversity context of the college students.

Condom Negotiation Strategies as a Mediator of the Relationship between Self-Efficacy and Condom Use

College students are a group at high risk of sexually transmitted infections due to inconsistent condom use and engaging in other risky sexual behaviors. This study examined whether condom use self-efficacy predicted the use of condom negotiation strategies (i.e., condom influence strategies) and whether condom influence strategies mediated the relationship between condom use self-efficacy and condom use within this population, as well as whether gender moderated the mediation model. Results showed a strong relationship between condom use self-efficacy and condom influence strategies. Additionally, condom influence strategies completely mediated the relationship between condom use self-efficacy and condom use. Although condom use self-efficacy was related to condom use, the ability to use condom negotiation strategies was the most important factor predicting condom use. The mediation model held across genders, except for the condom influence strategy withholding sex, where it was not significant for men. For women, condom use self-efficacy promoted the use of a very assertive negotiation strategy, withholding sex, and was consequently related to increased condom use. Overall, using assertive condom negotiation strategies (e.g., withholding sex and direct request) were found to be the most important aspects of increasing condom use for both women and men. Implications and suggestions for prevention programming are discussed.

Linking Racial Identity, Ethnic Identity, and Racial-Ethnic Socialization: A Tale of Three Race-Ethnicities

The relationship between racial and ethnic identity, as well as that between racial-ethnic socialization and racial and ethnic identity development, has become increasingly important to researchers as the proportion of children and young adults of color grows in the U.S. population. Parents’ racial-ethnic socialization messages are important for the ways in which children and young adults develop a sense of self as members of their racial or ethnic group. This article examined the racial identity, ethnic identity, and racial-ethnic socialization of 90 African American, 224 Asian American, and 216 Latino American college students. There were many strong associations between the measures of racial identity and ethnic identity as well as between racial-ethnic socialization and each measure of identity. Different patterns of relationships emerged among the three groups depending on whether the outcome variable was racial identity or ethnic identity. In the majority of instances where the three groups were not the same, Latino and Asian Americans were more similar to each other than to African Americans. In a few instances, the three groups exhibited different patterns of relationship among the constructs. Findings are discussed in terms of the sociocultural histories of the three groups.

The Relation Between Parental Racial Socialization and African Americans’ Racial Ideologies:

Racial ideology shapes how African Americans interpret the world and cope with race-related issues and events. A complex interaction of individual, family, and group experiences in one’s sociocultural and historical context is critical to the development of racial ideology. While parental racial socialization has been associated with racial identity, the more specific relationship between parental racial socialization and racial ideology is less understood. The present study examined the association of four dimensions of racial socialization messages reported by participants (cultural socialization, preparation for bias, promotion of mistrust, and egalitarian socialization) with four dimensions of racial ideology (assimilationist, humanist, oppressed minority, and nationalist) using hierarchical linear regression (n = 89 African American college students). Participants’ endorsement of assimilationist and oppressed minority ideologies was not predicted by racial socialization messages. However, endorsement of humanist and nationalist ideologies was predicted by cultural and egalitarian socialization messages in opposing directions. Cultural socialization was associated with endorsement of higher nationalist and lower humanist ideology, whereas egalitarian socialization was associated with the endorsement of lower nationalist and higher humanist ideology.

COMMUNITY MENTAL HEALTH

Publisher Summary This chapter focuses on community mental health and its evolution from tertiary prevention to the promotion of well-being. The confluence of two salient events in the early 1960s—efforts to deinstitutionalize the chronically mentally ill and legislation to create community mental health centers across the nation—launched the community mental health movement. With the aide of a prevention framework adapted from the field of public health, this movement has continued to evolve and grow. Initial emphases on tertiary prevention, often in the form of alternative community-based methods of treatment for the severely mentally ill, were followed by efforts aimed at early detection and intervention. In both tertiary and secondary forms of prevention, emotional and behavioral problems, or early antecedents thereof, continued to be identified at the level of the individual. Interventions were implemented within institutions in contrast to within communities. However, to reduce the incidence of disorder in the population, primary prevention programs aimed at communities, population groups, or settings were developed and implemented. These centers were mandated initially to offer inpatient care, outpatient care, emergency services, partial hospitalization, and consultation and education, and ultimately to include diagnostic services, rehabilitation services, precare and aftercare services, training, and research and evaluation. The aim was to integrate the patients into their local communities and smaller treatment settings in contrast to huge, anonymous state hospitals in remote physical locations. The use of phenothiazines made it more feasible to return patients to their communities as they were less likely to engage in the extremes of deviant behavior. At the same time, deinstitutionalization was seen as a dramatic cost-saving device by fiscally conservative legislators.