Does School Racial Composition Explain Why High Income Black Youth Perceive More Discrimination? A Gender Analysis.

Shervin Assari

doi:10.3390/brainsci8080140

Abstract

Recent research has documented poor mental health among high socioeconomic status (SES) Blacks, particularly African American males. The literature has also shown a positive link between SES and perceived discrimination, suggesting that perceived discrimination may explain why high SES Black males report poor mental health. To better understand the role of contextual factors in explaining this pattern, we aimed to test whether school racial composition explains why high income Black youth perceive more discrimination. We explored these associations by ethnicity and gender. Using data from the National Survey of American Life-Adolescent supplement (NSAL-A), the current study included 810 African American and 360 Caribbean Black youth, with a mean age of 15. Ethnicity, age, gender, income-to-needs ratio (SES), skin color, school racial composition, and perceived (daily) discrimination were measured. Using Stata 15.0 (Stata Corp., College Station, TX, USA), we fitted seven structural equation models (SEMs) for data analysis in the pooled sample based on the intersection of ethnicity and gender. Considerable gender by ethnicity variations were found in the associations between SES, school racial composition, and perceived discrimination. For African American males but not African American females or Caribbean Black males or females, school racial composition fully mediated the effect of SES on perceived discrimination. The role of inter-racial contact as a mechanism for high discrimination and poor mental health of Black American adolescents may depend on their intersection of ethnicity and gender. School racial composition may be a mechanism for increased perceived discrimination among high SES African American males.

Highlights

Traditional research has mostly focused on the protective effects of high socioeconomic status (SES) on population health [1–3], recent research has documented poor mental health amongBlacks of high SES [4,5]
The highest level of financial hardship was reported by Caribbean Black females
The highest level of discrimination was reported by Caribbean Black males

Summary

Introduction

Traditional research has mostly focused on the protective effects of high socioeconomic status (SES) on population health [1–3], recent research has documented poor mental health amongBlacks of high SES [4,5]. While state-of-the-art studies have shown that SES indicators such as income protect populations against poor mental health [6–11], and the SES -health link is reported as “enduring, consistent, and growing” [12], there is some growing research that shows education [13], income [14,15], marital status [16–19], and employment [20] have diminished effects on the health of Blacks compared to Whites [4,5]. Brain Sci. 2018, 8, 140 they occur [21–24], high SES is shown to increase perceived discrimination for Blacks [25,26] This is important because experiences of discrimination diminishes the health gains that follow. Education attainment [13] and employment [20] have smaller effects on life expectancy for Blacks than for Whites These patterns are robust as they are shown for youth [17–19,32], adults [17,20,30], and older adults [15], and have been replicated in cross-sectional [32] and longitudinal [17,20] studies

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