Maternal Race-Related Stressors and African American Adolescents' Academic and Behavioral Outcomes.

Abstract

The purpose of the current study was to use the integrative model for the Study of Stress in Black American Families to test whether a set of maternal race-related stressors were related to adolescents' academic and behavioral outcomes through maternal depressive symptoms and involved-vigilant parenting. Gender differences in these relations were tested also. Research on race-related stressors has predominantly focused on the role of personal racial discrimination experiences on individual outcomes. Yet parents' vicarious and anticipated racial discrimination also may be related to parents' psychological functioning, family processes, and adolescent development. Path analyses were conducted in Mplus 8.2 using online survey data from a national sample of 317 African American mothers of adolescents to examine direct and indirect relations between maternal personal, vicarious, and anticipated racial discrimination, and adolescents' problem behaviors, grades, and academic persistence. Maternal personal racial discrimination experiences were positively related to adolescents' internalizing and externalizing problem behaviors directly and indirectly through maternal depressive symptoms and involved-vigilant parenting. Anticipated racial discrimination and vicarious racial discrimination were indirectly related to better adolescent outcomes through positive relations with maternal involved-vigilant parenting. Maternal personal, vicarious, and anticipated racial discrimination act differently in relation to adolescent competencies in African American families.