Examining the Associations Between Latinx Adolescents’ Coping and School Functioning

Abstract

Stress and coping frameworks posit that active coping may help mitigate stress experiences of individuals, such as the stress resulting from structural racism or anti-immigrant sentiments (i.e., sociocultural stress) Latinx adolescents experience in the United States. Active coping has been linked to better school functioning in mixed-ethnic adolescent populations. The current study examined the associations between active coping and school functioning, as well as the moderating role of gender among 288 Latinx adolescents (M = 13.69, SD = .56; 53% girls). Results revealed active coping related to higher levels of school belonging and grades. No gender differences were found, suggesting active coping works similarly for Latinx adolescent girls’ and boys’ school functioning. This study’s findings contribute to the knowledge on Latinx school functioning by identifying active coping as a potential malleable target for intervention.

Keywords

active coping adolescents grades Latinx school belonging

U.S. Latinx adolescents develop within a racialized social system that creates structural barriers for ethnically minoritized students (e.g., educational policies, access to technologies) resulting in fewer resources and low-quality schools (Merolla & Jackson, 2019). Due to the existence of these systemic barriers (Merolla & Jackson, 2019), U.S. Latinx adolescents show poorer school functioning compared to U.S. White adolescents (National Center for Education Statistics [NCES], 2019). For example, the percentage of U.S. Latinx students that scored at or above a basic level of proficiency on the eighth grade 2019 Reading Assessment was lower (22%) than that of their U.S. White counterparts (42%; NCES, 2019). Additionally, among U.S. Latinx adolescents, research has documented a significant drop in school belonging during the transition from elementary to middle school (Hughes et al., 2015). This is concerning as poor school performance and a lowered sense of school belonging have been linked to various indicators of maladjustment, including depressive symptoms (Davis et al., 2019; Zychinski & Polo, 2012) and higher absenteeism (Sánchez et al., 2005).

To alter these alarming statistics, it is important to identify factors that may support U.S. Latinx students’ school functioning. One such factor may be active coping strategies in which an individual focuses on the stressful event, either to change the situation or to think about it more positively (Ayers et al., 1996; Folkman et al., 1986; Lazarus & Folkman, 1984). Specifically, active coping is one form of problem-focused coping, in which individuals engage in cognitive or behavioral efforts (e.g., seeking guidance, problem solving) to define and understand the situation in order to resolve a stressor (Ayers et al., 1996). For example, a student might feel stressed about failing a test that impacted their overall class grade; an active coping strategy for them might be to talk to the teacher to discuss possible ways (e.g., extra credit) to counteract the impact of the failed test on their overall class grade. From a prevention science perspective, examining active coping may be critical as it is considered a skill that can be taught and fostered within school settings (Clauss-Ehlers, 2008; Kraag et al., 2006).

Theoretical Foundations

Stress and coping frameworks posit that coping helps to manage stress and is a mechanism that supports well-being. Theory further suggests that when events are appraised as stressful, individuals will implement coping strategies to reduce feelings of distress, resulting in better outcomes (Lazarus & Folkman, 1987). As such, theory highlights that coping strategies may directly relate to better outcomes (Lazarus & Folkman, 1987). U.S. Latinx adolescents stress experiences (e.g., discrimination) make the development of coping strategies an important competency in fostering adjustment (Brietzke & Perreira, 2017; García-Coll et al., 1996).

Adolescent Active Coping and School Functioning

Past work with multi-ethnic samples (e.g., 51% White, 9% Black or African) has indicated that active coping strategies account for nearly half (e.g., 48%) of the coping strategies reported by seventh grade Canadian students (Bowker et al., 2000), suggesting its salience in middle school. Combined with evidence suggesting that marginalized adolescents experience high levels of stress exposure compared to U.S. White adolescents (Boardman & Alexander, 2011), active coping is likely a relevant construct in the lives of U.S. Latinx middle school students. Yet, much of the literature on coping among U.S. Latinx middle school students has focused on alternate types of coping strategies (e.g., avoidance, distraction, support seeking coping strategies) and has examined primarily the impact of these strategies on mental health outcomes (e.g., internalizing symptoms, depressive symptoms; Brittian et al., 2013; Edwards & Romero, 2008; Park et al., 2018). Less work has focused on relations between coping and school functioning. Two studies using samples of multi-ethnic (e.g., 48% White, 1% Latinx, Reschly et al., 2008; 78% White, 22% Latinx, Vaquera, 2009) U.S. high school students found positive relations between active coping and school belonging (i.e., close relationships in school; Vaquera, 2009) and positive student engagement with teachers (Reschly et al., 2008). However, to our knowledge, no work has examined the direct benefits of active coping for indicators such as school belonging among an ethnically homogeneous Latinx adolescent sample. Thus, the extent to which findings of studies examining the associations between active coping and school belonging among multi-ethnic samples generalize to U.S. Latinx adolescents remains unknown.

There is some mixed empirical evidence regarding the role of active coping strategies in relation to school performance (e.g., grades and high school graduation) among U.S. Latinx adolescents. For example, a mixed-method study found that active coping strategies (i.e., trying to fit in) were linked to higher graduation rates among U.S. Latinx high school students (Brietzke & Perreira, 2017). Additionally, a quantitative study examining U.S. Latinx high school students found that active coping related to higher grade point averages (GPA; McDermott et al., 2018). Conversely, a study of U.S. Latinx middle school students found that active coping was negatively related to a latent factor of school competence (i.e., composed of GPA, social competence, classroom conduct; Crean, 2004). Similarly, Gonzales and colleagues’ (2001) work with multi-ethnic middle school students, including U.S. Latinx adolescents, found that higher levels of active coping related to lower grades. The limited and equivocal nature of the literature on Latinx youth and coping indicate that more work is needed to understand the role of active coping in the educational lives of Latinx adolescents.

Gender Variation

Gender is an important source of within-group variability worthy of inclusion in studies of U.S. Latinx adolescents. Previous work with African American adolescents found that problem-focused coping strategies related to higher GPA among boys but were unrelated to GPA for girls (Amemiya & Wang, 2018). Whereas no study has evaluated gender differences in active coping using a U.S. Latinx sample, the gender differences documented among other ethnic/racial minority (e.g., African American) adolescents provide some evidence that similar gender differences may exist for U.S. Latinx adolescents. Further, previous research has suggested that U.S. Latinx boys and girls may be socialized to adhere to traditional gender roles; Latinx girls are often given greater household responsibilities (e.g., care of younger siblings, helping with meal preparation) earlier in life than boys (Raffaelli & Ontai, 2004). Navigating these responsibilities may provide Latinx girls more opportunities, than Latinx boys, to practice and develop their problem-solving skills sooner, which could make Latinx girls more apt to implement active coping strategies during times of distress, relating to better outcomes. Thus, the current study explored within-group variability (i.e., gender variability) in the association between active coping and school functioning among U.S. Latinx adolescents.

The Current Study

Some empirical and theoretical research supports the notion that active coping may foster school functioning among adolescents. Yet, no study has examined the relation between active coping and school belonging among an ethnically homogeneous U.S. Latinx adolescent sample. Further, due to the mixed findings, much of the existing empirical work examining coping and grades has not provided consistent evidence that active coping strategies supports better grades among U.S. Latinx adolescents. Also, no study has examined gender differences in the association between active coping strategies and school functioning among U.S. Latinx adolescents. In order to address these gaps, the current study had two goals, (a) to examine the associations between active coping and two indices of school functioning (i.e., school belonging and grades; Goal 1), and (b) to evaluate the moderating role of gender in the associations between active coping and two indices of school functioning - school belonging and grades (Goal 2).

Although empirical work examining the association between active coping and grades have presented mixed findings, theory suggests that coping strategies support positive outcomes. Therefore, we hypothesized that higher levels of active coping would be associated with higher levels of both indices of school functioning. We made no a priori hypotheses for the moderating role of gender given the limited work on U.S. Latinx adolescents and the uncertainty as to whether findings from past empirical work with African American adolescents (Amemiya & Wang, 2018) would be generalizable to U.S. Latinx adolescents. In our analyses, we controlled for parents’ education level, adolescent nativity, and adolescent gender. Previous research found that higher parental education related to higher levels of school belonging (Pittman & Richmond, 2007) and GPA (Martinez et al., 2004). Further, empirical work shows that U.S.-born Latinx students have lower GPAs than foreign-born Latinx students (Suárez-Orozco et al., 2009). Also, given the shifting politics and immigration policies (Wray-Lake et al., 2018), it is likely that foreign-born adolescents might feel a lower sense of belonging at school than native-born adolescents. Past work has also found that, over time, U.S. Latinx girls have lower levels of school belonging than U.S. Latinx boys (Neel & Fuligni, 2013). Additionally, there is some evidence that U.S. Latinx girls have higher GPAs than U.S. Latinx boys (Santiago et al., 2014).

Method

Participants

The total sample consisted of 329 families (i.e., parent-adolescent dyads), however, 41 adolescents had no recorded survey responses; thus, we dropped the 41 families of students with missing data. The final sample used in the current study included 288 parents and adolescents that completed verbally administered survey questions. Adolescent participants were 13 (35.40%), 14 (58.30%), and 15 (4.50%) years old (M = 13.69, SD = .56); five participants did not report their age. The sample included slightly more girls (53%) than boys (46%); however, three students did not report their gender. Participants’ self-report of birthplace included the U.S. (86.30%), Mexico (8.80%), and Latin American countries (4.60%); one participant was not sure of their birthplace (.30%). Adolescents’ self-reported ethnicity included Hispanic (44.50%), Mexican (19.80%), Mexican American (18.90%), Latinx (7%), White (2.70%), White/Hispanic (2.10%), Chicano (1.50%), African American/Mexican (.60%), Mixed/Other (.60%), Native American (.60%), African American/Latinx (.90%), Other Hispanic (.30%), and African American (.30%); one participant did not report their ethnicity. Also, 58.20% of adolescents self-reported being bilingual. Parents’ reports of educational attainment included, no education (30%), some education or high school diploma (50%), post-secondary schooling (49.90%), and master’s degree or higher (8%); two parents did not report their educational attainment.

Procedure

The cross-sectional data for the current study came from a larger 3-year longitudinal study of 329 Latinx families focused on academic identity and achievement. Participants were recruited through convenience sampling using open records data. Undergraduate and graduate research assistants called parents or guardians of eighth-grade students that were listed in the directory information for higher education roster, which was provided to the research team by five local school districts. Families were eligible to participate if they: (a) had a child in the eighth grade and (b) had a biological mother and/or a biological or long-term adoptive father living in the students’ homes and had origins in Latin American or Latin Caribbean countries. During the consent process, parents were asked to consent for themselves and their adolescent. After receiving parental consent for adolescent participation, adolescents’ assent was obtained. To interview adolescents both parental consent and adolescent assent was required. Upon receiving appropriate parental consent, and adolescent assent undergraduate/graduate research assistants interviewed participants, verbally administering survey questions by telephone in English or Spanish. Surveys were translated by the research team into Spanish using established forward and backward translation methods (Knight et al., 2010), and were available to all participants who requested to take the survey in Spanish. Interviewers reported that 47 (16.32%) participating adolescents completed Spanish surveys, 234 (81.25%) completed the survey in English, and for 7 (2.43%) participating adolescents’ interviewers did not report the survey language. All survey answers were recorded using the online data collection site Qualtrics. Participating families received a $25 gift-card to a local store for their time. All study procedures were reviewed and approved by the University’s Institutional Review Board.

Measures

Active Coping Strategies

The active coping subscale from the Children’s Coping Strategies Checklist (Ayers et al., 1996; Sandler et al., 1997) was used; the items’ stem was “When you had a problem…” and consisted of 12 items (e.g., “you did something to solve the problem.”). The response options for the scale ranged from 1 = almost never or never to 4 = a lot of the time. A mean score was calculated using the 12 items in the active coping subscale. This measure has demonstrated adequate reliability and validity in Mexican-origin adolescent samples (Liu et al., 2011). Our sample’s Cronbach’s alpha was .93.

School Belonging

The school belonging scale consisted of four items (e.g., “I am happy to be at school.”) that measured feelings regarding school, safety, and social relationships (Vaquera, 2009). The response options for the scale were 1 = not true at all to 4 = very true. A mean score was calculated using the four items in the school belonging measure. This measure has demonstrated adequate reliability and support for validity in a U.S. Hispanic and U.S. White adolescent sample (Vaquera, 2009). Our sample’s Cronbach’s alpha for this measure was .77.

Grades

Grades were measured using a single item. Participants were asked “What grades do you mostly get in school?” with response items being “1 = mostly As”, “2 = about half As and half Bs”, “3 = mostly Bs”, “4 = about half Bs and half Cs”, “5 = mostly Cs”, “6 = about half Cs and half Ds”, “7 = mostly Ds”, or “8 = mostly below Ds.” Reported grades were reverse coded so that higher scores represented greater academic achievement.

Background Characteristics

Adolescents and parents were asked demographic questions. Adolescents self-reported on gender and nativity. Gender was dummy coded: 1 = boys, 0 = girls. Nativity was dummy coded: 0 = foreign-born adolescents, 1 = U.S.-born adolescents. Parents’ education level was calculated using family’s highest education level based on parents reported educational attainment. Responses were coded as 0 = no formal schooling, 1 = elementary school, 2 = middle school (6-eighth grade), 3 = some high school (9-12^th grade), 4 = GED, 5 = graduated high school, 6 = vocational/technical school, 7 = some college, 8 = associates degree (2 year degree), 9 = college degree (BS/BA), 10 = graduate degree (Master’s degree), and 11 = Doctoral/advanced degree (MD, JD, DO, DDS, PhD, etc.) and the scores were used as a proxy for socioeconomic status.

Analytic Plan

To examine the direct associations between active coping and the two indicators of school functioning (Goal 1), we used path analysis in Mplus version 7.31 (Muthén & Muthén, 1998-2012) with the full information maximum likelihood estimator (FIML; Enders, 2010). The model addressing Goal 1 examined the independent variable active coping, the dependent variables school belonging and grades, and the covariates gender, nativity, and family’s highest educational attainment. To examine the moderating role of gender (Goal 2), a multigroup modeling approach in Mplus was used to test for significant differences between boys and girls in the associations examined in Goal 1. We performed a chi-square difference test comparing a model where the paths of interest (i.e., active coping to school belonging and active coping to grades) were allowed to freely vary across groups to a model where the paths of interest were constrained to be equal across groups, performed in a stepwise fashion for each path of interest. Evidence of moderation was shown when the constrained model resulted in a significant change in chi-square change statistic, and fit indices indicated that the unconstrained model fit significantly better than the constrained model (Kline, 1998). We also conducted a post hoc indirect effects path analysis examining school belonging as an explanatory variable in the association between active coping and grades. Active coping may facilitate the development of close relationships with teachers and such relationships may foster a strong sense of school belonging. Additionally, past work suggests that school belonging supports higher GPA among U.S. Latinx adolescents (Delgado et al., 2016). To test for the significance of the indirect pathways, we used bias-corrected bootstrapping with 1000 iterations and 95% confidence intervals. Confidence intervals that do not contain zero suggest significance at p < .05. For all analyses, several indices were used to evaluate model fit (Schumacker & Lomax, 2016): the chi-square ( $χ$ ²) value, the Comparative Fit Index (CFI > .95), the Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA < .06), and the Standardized Root Mean Square Residual (SRMR < .08).

Results

Correlations indicated that the study variables were related in the expected direction; descriptive statistics are presented (Table 1). Starting with the findings for the covariates, nativity was positively associated with school belonging, suggesting that U.S.-born adolescents reported higher school belonging than foreign-born adolescents (Table 2), but was unrelated to grades. We did not find evidence of associations between parents’ education level and school belonging, but there was a positive association between parents’ education level and grades. Results showed that higher parental educational attainment related to higher adolescent grades. For gender, there was no significant association with school belonging; however, there was an association between gender and grades, such that adolescent girls had higher grades than adolescent boys. The path model examining the direct associations between active coping and both school belonging and grades met standards for good fit (Table 2). Regarding Goal 1, results showed that active coping was associated with school belonging and grades; higher levels of active coping related to higher levels of school belonging and higher grades (Table 2). Further, active coping significantly explained 18% of the variance in school belonging and 16% of the variance in grades. Our results for Goal 2 showed there were no significant differences by gender in the association between active coping and school belonging, Δ

χ^{2}

(1) = 2.12, p =.15 or between active coping and grades, Δ

χ^{2}

(1) = 1.37, p = .24. Results of the post hoc analysis showed a significant indirect association between active coping and grades through school belonging (ab = .09, 95% CI [.03, .18]), see Figure 1. Specifically, active coping was related to greater school belonging, and school belonging related to higher grades. The direct effect between active coping and grades was not significant with the inclusion of school belonging.

Table 1.

Correlations, means (M), and standard deviation (SD) for all study variables (N = 288).

Variables	1	2	3	4	5	6
1. Active coping	—
2. Gender	.01	—
3. Highest fam. Edu	.07	.03	—
4. Nativity	.06	.04	.01	—
5. School belong	.40***	.05	−.01	−.11	—
6. Grades	.18**	−.26***	.24***	−.06	.25***	—
Mean	3.98	.46	5.43	.85	3.45	6.68
SD	.76	.50	2.68	.35	.57	1.12

Note. Fam. = Family; Edu. = Education; Belong = Belonging; Adolescent gender coded 1 = boys, 0 = girls; Adolescent nativity coded 1= U.S.-born, 0 = foreign-born; *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.

Table 2.

Results of Path Analysis for Variables’ Association to School Belonging and Grades (N = 288).

	School Belonging			Grades
Variables	B	SE	p	B	SE	p
Family Ed.	−.04	.05	.52	.23	.05	.00
Nativity	.13	.05	.01	.06	.05	.29
Gender	.05	.05	.38	−.26	.05	.00
Active coping	.41	.05	.00	.17	.05	.00
R ²	.18	.04	.00	.16	.04	.00

Note. Ed. = Education; Adolescents’ gender coded 1 = boys, 0 = girls; Adolescents’ nativity coded 1= U.S.-born, 0 = foreign-born; bolded p-values indicates significant associations; Model fit: χ² (0) = 0.00, p < .001; RMSEA = .00, 90% CI [.00, .00]; CFI = 1.00; SRMR = .00.

Figure 1.

Path analysis examining the association between active coping and grades through school belonging. Adolescents’ gender coded 1 = boys, 0 = girls; Adolescents’ nativity coded 1 = U.S.-born, 0 = foreign-born. Reported are the unstandardized coefficients and the standard error (S.E.). Bold coefficients indicate significant paths. Bold paths reflect significant indirect effect. ^*p < .05, ^**p < .01, ^***p < .001.

Discussion

Goal 1 of the current study was to examine the links between active coping and two important indicators of school functioning, namely school belonging and grades among Latinx middle school students. Goal 2 of the current study was to test the role of gender in the associations between active coping and the indicators of school functioning. The study findings contribute to the existing coping literature by: (a) identifying active coping as a relevant skill that programs can develop to support grades and school belonging among U.S. Latinx adolescents, and (b) highlighting that active coping supports school functioning similarly for U.S. Latinx boys and girls in middle school, suggesting that programs supporting grades and school belonging need to equally focus on building active coping strategies among U.S. Latinx boys and girls.

Adolescent Active Coping and School Functioning

We found that active coping related to better school belonging and higher grades. These findings are consistent with stress and coping theory (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984), suggesting that in a context in which U.S. Latinx adolescents experience sociocultural stress (García-Coll et al., 1996; Stein et al., 2012), active coping may be implemented, relating to better outcomes. Our findings are also consistent with previous empirical work linking active coping to school functioning, and further extend research that has relied on multi-ethnic samples (Reschly et al., 2008) to an ethnically homogeneous U.S. Latinx sample. Specifically, the findings of the current study suggest that active coping strategies support school belonging among U.S. Latinx adolescents. An explanation for the findings of the current study may be that when adolescents use active coping strategies, they often reach out to faculty and staff to problem solve stressful situations and this facilitates the development of stronger relationships with teachers and counselors; thus, promoting feelings of school belonging (Reschly et al., 2008). Also, it is possible that having strong relationships with school personnel facilitates active coping strategies, thus, future work is needed to examine the bidirectional link between active coping and school belonging.

Additionally, the current study found that active coping related to better grades. It is possible that active coping allows adolescents to resolve problems (Gonzales & Kim, 1997; Lazarus & Folkman, 1984) and this reduces psychological distress, allowing students to focus on academic assignments and achieve better school performance (i.e., grades). However, the positive association between active coping and school grades does not align with some past research (i.e., Crean, 2004; Gonzales et al., 2001). An explanation for the different findings may be that because Crean (2004) used a latent construct (that included GPA) as an indicator of school competency, the active coping strategy examined may have only explained variance in GPA and not the overall latent factor. The other study utilized a multi-ethnic sample (Gonzales et al., 2001), thus, another explanation for the different findings may be that active coping strategies may not be promotive of grades for all ethnic groups. In sum, the findings of the current study identified active coping as a mechanism that supports two indicators of school functioning (i.e., school belonging and grades) among U.S. Latinx adolescents, suggesting that active coping strategies might represent a potential target for interventions that focus on educational outcomes.

The results of the post hoc indirect effects path analysis indicate school belonging explained the association between active coping and grades, which is consistent with past work suggesting that a strong sense of school belonging allows students to feel more competent, supported, and accepted in school (Osterman, 2000), and that these positive feelings toward school may enable active participation and investment in the learning process (e.g., asking questions in class) thereby supporting better grades. The findings of the post hoc analysis highlight the important role of school belonging in the association between active coping and grades among U.S. Latinx adolescents. These results suggest that intervention programs not only need to target the development of active coping strategies but also should try and foster a sense of community and belonging in school to support better grades among U.S. Latinx adolescents. However, longitudinal research is needed to further examine school belonging as a mediator in the link between active coping and grades.

Gender Variation

The current study found no gender differences in the relation between active coping and school functioning suggesting that active coping is equally beneficial for girls’ and boys’ school functioning. However, the current study’s findings are contradictory to past empirical perspectives utilizing African American samples which showed significant gender differences between boys and girls in the association between coping and GPA (Amemiya & Wang, 2018). An explanation for the contradictory findings may be that although U.S. Latinx girls are given more responsibilities at home earlier in life (Raffaelli & Ontai, 2004), U.S. Latinx boys may have the same number of opportunities outside the home to utilize and develop their problem-solving skills, making both U.S. Latinx girls and boys equally comfortable utilizing active coping strategies to adapt to unique stressors in the school context. The current study’s findings contribute to the limited work examining the role of gender in the association between active coping and school functioning among ethnic minority adolescents.

Limitations and Future Directions

There are several limitations in this study which should be addressed in future work. First, the current study only examined active coping strategies, leaving questions regarding the association between other coping strategies (e.g., avoidance coping, support seeking coping) and school functioning (i.e., school belonging and grades) among Latinx adolescents. Second, the majority of our sample was born in the U.S. and live in a specific U.S. Southwestern region, so, these findings may not be generalizable to foreign born Latinx or Latinx adolescents living in other U.S. regions (e.g., Midwest). Also, the study is cross-sectional, thus, temporal precedence could not be established. Future research should address these limitations by examining multiple dimensions of coping, utilizing a more nationally representative U.S. Latinx adolescent sample, and examining coping and school functioning over time. Another limitation is that we only examined the direct associations between active coping and school functioning, therefore, the role of coping in the context of stress could not be examined. To better understand the role of active coping in the context of stress, as proposed by stress and coping theory, future work should include a measure of stress when examining active coping among U.S. Latinx adolescents. Additionally, the current study only examined adolescent reports for all main variables which may have produced shared method variance and biased the results; future work should consider utilizing parent reports of adolescents’ school functioning. Finally, our measure for grades consisted of one self-reported item, and it is possible that adolescents inaccurately reported their grades. Future work should examine other more accurate indicators of school performance (e.g., report card grades). Despite these limitations, the findings of the current study demonstrate the salience of active coping in relation to school functioning for U.S. Latinx adolescents.

Conclusion

The results of the current study suggest that active coping skills may not only improve grades but also bolster adolescents’ sense of belonging and community, another key indicator of school functioning, which has been linked to better overall psychological health (Davis et al., 2019). The current study extends the scant research examining coping strategies in relation to school functioning to U.S. Latinx adolescents. Although this study has several limitations, the findings of this study can be used as a starting point to consider targeting active coping as a key component of programs that focus on improving the school functioning of U.S. Latinx adolescents. Overall, the findings from this study contribute to the field of U.S. Latinx adolescent research by identifying active coping as a potential supportive factor and malleable target for intervention that can be cultivated, so that U.S. Latinx adolescents are successful in their current and future educational endeavors.

Footnotes

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank The Greater Texas Foundation for funding the ALCANCE Project. Additionally, we would like to thank Dr. Melissa Delgado the principal investigator of the ALCANCE Project for the use of these data. Further, we would like to express gratitude to the graduate and undergraduate students who participated in data management and collection.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work was supported by The Greater Texas Foundation.

ORCID iD

Rayni Thomas

Author Biographies

Rayni Thomas is a PhD student majoring in Family Studies and Human Development in the Norton School of Family and Consumer Sciences at The University of Arizona. Her research interests focus on factors that support school functioning (e.g., coping) among Latinx adolescents.

Melissa Y. Delgado is an Associate Professor of Family Studies and Human Development in the Norton School of Family and Consumer Sciences at The University of Arizona. Her major research interests include the mechanisms that reduce racial/ethnic inequality (e.g., educational) and promote Latinx youth’s positive development across early to late adolescence, particularly for youth of Mexican origin.

Rajni L. Nair is a Senior Lecturer at Arizona State University (ASU) in the College of Integrative Sciences and Arts. Her research focuses on understanding the impacts that culturally based parenting practices have on Latinx youth adjustment. Additionally, her work is focused on highlighting how stressors shape the psychosocial adjustment of Latinx youth. She is particularly interested in understanding malleable family and school level factors that can promote positive youth development and psychosocial functioning among minority youth.

Lorey A. Wheeler is an Associate Research Professor in the Nebraska Center for Research on Children, Youth, Families and Schools and the Co-Director of the Nebraska Academy for Methodology, Analytics and Psychometrics at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. Her major research interests include the role of family and cultural contexts in development, including psychosocial adjustment, interpersonal relationships, and educational and occupational attainment among minoritized and understudied populations, particularly those of Mexican origin.

Katharine H. Zeiders is an Associate Professor in the Norton School of Family and Consumer Sciences at the University of Arizona. Her research focuses on understanding the role of sociocultural stressors in ethnic and racial minority adolescents’ physiological and psychological functioning.

Norma J. Perez-Brena is an Associate Professor and the Director of Strengthening Families/Strengthening Relationships (SR/SF) in the Human Development and Family Science program at Texas State University. Her primary research interest is understanding the combination of social (e.g., income, education), cultural (e.g., values, norms, acculturation, language use), and personal (e.g., gender, social competence) characteristics that promote Latinx and immigrant families adjustment. Her work is centered on two key areas: the negotiation of parent-child relationships across development, and the impacts of culture across the life-span.

References

Amemiya

Wang

M. T.

(2018). African American adolescents’ gender and perceived school climate moderate how academic coping relates to achievement. Journal of School Psychology, 69, 127–142. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jsp.2018.05.001

Ayers

T. S.

Sandier

I. N.

West

S. G.

Roosa

M. W.

(1996). A dispositional and situational assessment of children’s coping: Testing alternative models of coping. Journal of Personality, 64(4), 923–958. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-6494.1996.tb00949.x

Boardman

J. D.

Alexander

K. B.

(2011). Stress trajectories, health behaviors, and the mental health of black and white young adults. Social Science & Medicine, 72(10), 1659–1666. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2011.03.024

Bowker

Bukowski

W. M.

Hymel

Sippola

L. K.

(2000). Coping with daily hassles in the peer group in early adolescence: Variations as a function of peer experience. Journal of Research on Adolescence, 10(2), 211–243. https://doi.org/10.1207/SJRA1002_5

Brietzke

Perreira

(2017). Stress and coping: Latino youth coming of age in a new Latino destination. Journal of Adolescent Research, 32(4), 407–432. https://doi.org/10.1177/0743558416637915

Brittian

A. S.

Toomey

R. B.

Gonzales

N. A.

Dumka

L. E.

(2013). Perceived discrimination, coping strategies, and Mexican origin adolescents’ internalizing and externalizing behaviors: Examining the moderating role of gender and cultural orientation. Applied Developmental Science, 17(1), 4–19. https://doi.org/10.1080/10888691.2013.748417

Clauss-Ehlers

C. S.

(2008). Sociocultural factors, resilience, and coping: Support for a culturally sensitive measure of resilience. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 29(3), 197–212. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.appdev.2008.02.004

Crean

H. F.

(2004). Social support, conflict, major life stressors, and adaptive coping strategies in Latino middle school students: An integrative model. Journal of Adolescent Research, 19(6), 657–676. https://doi.org/10.1177/0743558403260018

Davis

J. P.

Merrin

G. J.

Ingram

K. M.

Espelage

D. L.

Valido

El Sheikh

A. J.

(2019). Examining pathways between bully victimization, depression, & school belonging among early adolescents. Journal of Child and Family Studies, 28(9), 2365–2378. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10826-019-01340-9

10.

Delgado

M. Y

Ettekal

A. V.

Simpkins

S. D.

Schaefer

D. R.

(2016). How do my friends matter? Examining Latino adolescents’ friendships, school belonging, and academic achievement. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 45(6), 1110–1125. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-015-0341-x

11.

Edwards

L. M.

Romero

A. J.

(2008). Coping with discrimination among Mexican descent adolescents. Hispanic Journal of Behavioral Sciences, 30(1), 24–39. https://doi.org/10.1177/0739986307311431

12.

Enders

C. K.

(2010). Applied missing data analysis. Guilford.

13.

Folkman

Lazarus

R. S.

Dunkel-Schetter

DeLongis

Gruen

R. J.

(1986). Dynamics of a stressful encounter: Cognitive appraisal, coping, and encounter outcomes. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 50(5), 992–1003. https://dx-doi-org.web.bisu.edu.cn/10.1037/0022-3514.50.5.992

14.

García-Coll

Crnic

Lamberty

Wasik

B. H.

Jenkins

Garcia

H. V.

McAdoo

H. P.

(1996). An integrative model for the study of developmental competencies in minority children. Child Development, 67(5), 1891–1914. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8624.1996.tb01834.x

15.

Gonzales

N. A.

Kim

L. S.

(1997). Stress and coping in an ethnic minority context. In Wolchik

S. A.

Sandler

I. N.

(Eds.), In handbook of children’s coping (pp. 481–511). Springer.

16.

Gonzales

N. A.

Tein

J. Y.

Sandler

I. N.

Friedman

R. J.

(2001). On the limits of coping: Interaction between stress and coping for inner-city adolescents. Journal of Adolescent Research, 16(4), 372–395. https://doi.org/10.1177/0743558401164005

17.

Hughes

J. N.

M. H.

Allee

P. J.

(2015). Effect of school belonging trajectories in grades 6–8 on achievement: Gender and ethnic differences. Journal of School Psychology, 53(6), 493–507. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jsp.2015.08.001

18.

Kline

R. B.

(1998). Principles and practice of structural equation modeling. Guilford.

19.

Knight

G. P.

Roosa

M. W.

Umana-Taylor

A. J.

(2010). Studying ethnic minority and economically disadvantaged populations methodological challenges and best practices. American Psychological Association. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv1chs43r

20.

Kraag

Zeegers

M. P.

Kok

Hosman

Abu-Saad

H. H.

(2006). School programs targeting stress management in children and adolescents: A meta-analysis. Journal of School Psychology, 44(6), 449–472. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jsp.2006.07.001

21.

Lazarus

R. S.

Folkman

(1984). Stress, appraisal, and coping. Springer.

22.

Lazarus

R. S.

Folkman

(1987). Transactional theory and research on emotions and coping. European Journal of Personality, 1(3), 141–169. https://doi.org/10.1002/per.2410010304

23.

Liu

F. F.

Gonzales

N. A.

Fernandez

A. C.

Millsap

R. E.

Dumka

L. E.

(2011). Family stress and coping for Mexican origin adolescents. Journal of Clinical Child & Adolescent Psychology, 40(3), 385–397. https://doi.org/10.1080/15374416.2011.563463

24.

Martinez

C. R.

Jr DeGarmo

D. S.

Eddy

J. M.

(2004). Promoting academic success among Latino youths. Hispanic Journal of Behavioral Sciences, 26(2), 128–151. https://doi.org/10.1177/0739986304264573

25.

McDermott

Umaña-Taylor

Martinez-Fuentes

(2018). Family ethnic socialization predicts better academic outcomes via proactive coping with discrimination and increased self-efficacy. Journal of Adolescence, 65(1), 189–195. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.adolescence.2018.03.011

26.

Merolla

D. M.

Jackson

(2019). Structural racism as the fundamental cause of the academic achievement gap. Sociology Compass, 13(6), Article e12696. https://doi.org/10.1111/soc4.12696

27.

Muthén

L.K.

Muthén

B.O.

(1998-2012). Mplus user’s guide (7th ed.). Muthén & Muthén.

28.

National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) . (2019). The nation’s report card: NAEP report card: Reading. https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/reading/nation/achievement/?grade=8#

29.

Neel

C. G.

Fuligni

(2013). A longitudinal study of school belonging and academic motivation across high school. Child Development, 84(2), 678–692. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8624.2012.01862.x

30.

Osterman

K. F.

(2000). Students’ need for belonging in the school community. Review of Educational Research, 70(3), 323–367. https://doi.org/10.2307/1170786

31.

Park

I. J.

Wang

Williams

D. R.

Alegría

(2018). Coping with racism: Moderators of the discrimination–adjustment link among Mexican‐origin adolescents. Child Development, 89(3), Article e293–e310. https://doi.org/10.1111/cdev.12856

32.

Pittman

L. D.

Richmond

(2007). Academic and psychological functioning in late adolescence: The importance of school belonging. The Journal of Experimental Education, 75(4), 270-290. https://doi.org/10.3200/JEXE.75.4.270-292

33.

Raffaelli

Ontai

L. L.

(2004). Gender socialization in Latino/a families: Results from two retrospective studies. Sex Roles, 50(5/6), 287–299. https://doi.org/10.1023/B:SERS.0000018886.58945.06

34.

Reschly

A. L.

Huebner

E. S.

Appleton

J. J.

Antaramian

(2008). Engagement as flourishing: The contribution of positive emotions and coping to adolescents' engagement at school and with learning. Psychology in The Schools, 45(5), 419–431. https://doi.org/10.1002/pits.20306

35.

Sánchez

Colón

Esparza

(2005). The role of sense of school belonging and gender in the academic adjustment of Latino adolescents. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 34(6), 619–628. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-005-8950-4

36.

Sandler

I. N.

Wolchik

S. A.

MacKinnon

Ayers

T. S.

Roosa

M. W.

(1997). Developing linkages between theory and intervention in stress and coping processes. In Wolchik

S. A.

Sandler

I. N.

(Eds.), Handbook of children’s coping (pp. 3–40). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4757-2677-0_1

37.

Santiago

C. D.

Gudiño

O. G.

Baweja

Nadeem

(2014). Academic achievement among immigrant and U.S.‐born Latino adolescents: Associations with cultural, family, and acculturation factors. Journal of Community Psychology, 42(6), 735–747. https://doi.org/10.1002/jcop.21649

38.

Schumacker

R. E.

Lomax

R. G.

(2016). A beginner’s guide to structural equation modeling. Routledge.

39.

Stein

G. L.

Gonzalez

L. M.

Huq

(2012). Cultural stressors and the hopelessness model of depressive symptoms in Latino adolescents. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 41(10), 1339–1349. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-012-9765-8

40.

Suárez-Orozco

Rhodes

Milburn

(2009). Unraveling the immigrant paradox: Academic engagement and disengagement among recently arrived immigrant youth. Youth & Society, 41(2), 151–185. https://doi.org/10.1177/0044118X09333647

41.

Vaquera

(2009). Friendship, educational engagement, and school belonging: Comparing Hispanic and White adolescents. Hispanic Journal of Behavioral Sciences, 31(4), 492–514. https://doi.org/10.1177/0739986309346023

42.

Wray-Lake

Wells

Alvis

Delgado

Syvertsen

A. K.

Metzger

(2018). Being a Latinx adolescent under a Trump presidency: Analysis of Latinx youth's reactions to immigration politics. Children and Youth Services Review, 87(1), 192–204. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2018.02.032

43.

Zychinski

K. E.

Polo

A. J.

(2012). Academic achievement and depressive symptoms in low-income Latino youth. Journal of Child and Family Studies, 21(4), 565–577. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10826-011-9509-5