Article contents
Neighborhood structural characteristics and Mexican-origin adolescents’ development
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 October 2018
Abstract
Ethnic–racial and socioeconomic residential segregation are endemic in the United States, representing societal-level sociocultural processes that likely shape development. Considered alongside communities’ abilities to respond to external forces, like stratification, in ways that promote youth adaptive functioning and mitigate maladaptive functioning, it is likely that residence in segregated neighborhoods during adolescence has both costs and benefits. We examined the influences that early adolescents’ neighborhood structural characteristics, including Latino concentration and concentrated poverty, had on a range of developmentally salient downstream outcomes (i.e., internalizing, externalizing, prosocial behaviors, and ethnic–racial identity resolution) via implications for intermediate aspects of adolescents’ community participation and engagement (i.e., ethnic–racial identity exploration, ethnic–racial discrimination from peers, and school attachment). These mediational mechanisms were tested prospectively across three waves (Mage w1-w3 = 12.79, 15.83, 17.37 years, respectively) in a sample of 733 Mexican-origin adolescents (48.8% female). We found higher neighborhood Latino concentration during early adolescence predicted greater school attachment and ethnic–racial identity exploration and lower discrimination from peers in middle adolescence. These benefits, in turn, were associated with lower externalizing and internalizing and higher ethnic–racial identity resolution and prosocial behaviors in late adolescence. Findings are discussed relative to major guidelines for integrating culture into development and psychopathology.
- Type
- Special Issue Articles
- Information
- Development and Psychopathology , Volume 30 , Special Issue 5: Cultural Development and Psychopathology , December 2018 , pp. 1679 - 1698
- Copyright
- Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2018
Footnotes
Funding was provided by NIMH Grant R01-MH68920, the William T. Grant Foundation Scholars Program Grant ID 182878, and the Latino Resilience Enterprise, T. Denny Sanford School of Social and Family Dynamics. The authors are thankful for the support of Mark Roosa, Nancy Gonzales, George Knight, Jenn-Yun Tein, Marisela Torres, Leticia Gelhard, Jaimee Virgo, Alexandria Curlee, our Community Advisory Board and interviewers, and the families who participated in the study. The first and second authors gratefully acknowledge writing support from the Frances McClelland Institute for Children, Youth, & Families’ Latino Families Consortium Writing Retreat.
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