Neighborhood and school ethnic structuring and cultural adaptations among Mexican-origin adolescents

Registered Report: Parallel Ethnic Identity Development of Mexican-origin Adolescents and Mothers under the Influence of Neighborhood Latinx Concentration and Ethnic-Racial Diversity

Past research has shown that co-ethnic or ethnically-racially diverse neighborhoods can serve as safe and supportive places for U.S. immigrant families to explore and develop clarity about their ethnic identity. Although parents undergo concurrent changes in the adaptation process with their children, existing research has predominantly focused on adolescents, with fewer examination on adult parents' continued ethnic identity development; additionally, researchers also overlook the impact of neighborhood context on ethnic identity in parents. To fill this gap, this registered study used a three-wave longitudinal dataset of 595 Mexican-origin adolescents and their mothers in central Texas. Latent growth models were used to estimate how ethnic identity (i.e., exploration, centrality, and resolution) changed across time in mother-adolescent dyads. Our findings indicated some level of connectedness in the development of family members' ethnic identities, particularly in terms of exploration. We also found that mothers' ethnic identity development was shaped by their neighborhood contexts, with those residing in more diverse neighborhoods being less likely to explore their ethnic identities. Results inform prevention and intervention efforts to promote family collaboration and help immigrant family members develop a positive sense of ethnic identity in the adaptation process.

Place-Based Developmental Research: Conceptual and Methodological Advances in Studying Youth Development in Context

Scientists have, for some time, recognized that development unfolds in numerous settings, including families, schools, neighborhoods, and organized and unorganized activity settings. Since the turn of the 20th century, the body of mainstream neighborhood effects scholarship draws heavily from the early 20th century Chicago School of Sociology frameworks and have been situating development in neighborhood contexts and working to identify the structures and processes via which neighborhoods matter for a range of developmental outcomes, especially achievement, behavioral and emotional problems, and sexual activity. From this body of work, two new areas of developmental scholarship are emerging. Both areas are promising for advancing an understanding of child development in context. First, cultural-developmental neighborhood researchers are advancing neighborhood effects research that explicitly recognizes the ways that racial, ethnic, cultural, and immigrant social positions matter for neighborhood environments and for youths' developmental demands, affordances, experiences, and competencies. This body of work substantially expands the range of developmental outcomes examined in neighborhood effects scholarship to recognize normative physical, emotional, cognitive, behavioral, social, and cultural competencies that have largely been overlooked in neighborhood effects scholarship that espoused a more color-blind developmental approach. Second, activity space neighborhood researchers are recognizing that residential neighborhoods have important implications for broader activity spaces-or the set of locations and settings to which youth are regularly exposed, including, for example, schools, work, organized activities, and hang-outs. They are using newer technologies and geographic frameworks to assess exposure to residential neighborhood and extra-neighborhood environments. These perspectives recognize that time (i.e., from microtime to mesotime) and place are critically bound and that exposures can be operationalized at numerous levels of the ecological system (i.e., from microsystems to macrosystems). These frameworks address important limitations of prior development in context scholarship by addressing selection and exposure. Addressing selection involves recognizing that families have some degree of choice when selecting into settings and variables that predict families' choices (e.g., income) also predict development. Considering exposure involves recognizing that different participants or residents experience different amounts of shared and nonshared exposures, resulting in both under-and over-estimation of contextual effects. Activity space scholars incorporate exposure to the residential neighborhood environments, but also to other locations and settings to which youth are regularly exposed, like schools, after-school settings, work, and hang-outs. Unfortunately, the cultural-development and activity space streams, which have both emerged from early 20th century work on neighborhood effects on development, have been advancing largely independently. Thus, the overarching aim of this monograph is to integrate scholarship on residential neighborhoods, cultural development, and activity spaces to advance a framework that can support a better understanding of development in context for diverse groups. In Chapters I and II we present the historical context of the three streams of theoretical, conceptual, and methodological research. We also advance a comprehensive cultural-developmental activity space framework for studying development in context among children, youth, and families that are ethnically, racially, and culturally heterogeneous. This framework actively recognized diversity in ethnic, racial, immigrant, and socioeconomic social positions. In Chapters III-V we advance specific features of the framework, focusing on: (1) the different levels of nested and nonnested ecological systems that can be captured and operationalized with activity space methods, (2) the different dimensions of time and exposures or experiences that can be captured and operationalized by activity space methods, and (3) the importance of settings structures and social processes for identifying underlying mechanisms of contextual effects on development. Structures are setting features related to the composition and spatial arrangement of people and institutions (e.g., socioeconomic disadvantage, ethnic/racial compositions). Social processes represent the collective social dynamics that take place in settings, like social interactions, group activities, experiences with local institutions, mechanisms of social control, or shared beliefs. In Chapter VI, we highlight a range of methodological and empirical exemplars from the United States that are informed by our comprehensive cultural-developmental activity space framework. These exemplars feature both quantitative and qualitative methods, including method mixing. These exemplars feature both quantitative and qualitative methods, including method mixing. The exemplars also highlight the application of the framework across four different samples from populations that vary in terms of race, ethnicity, gender, age, socioeconomic status (SES), geographic region, and urbanicity. They capture activity space characteristics and features in a variety of ways, in addition to incorporating family shared and nonshared activity space exposures. Finally, in Chapter VII we summarize the contributions of the framework for advancing a more comprehensive science of development in context, one that better realizes major developmental theories emphasizing persons, processes, contexts, and time. Additionally, we offer a place-based, culturally informed developmental research agenda to meet the needs of an increasingly diverse population.

Adolescent Development in Context: A Decade Review of Neighborhood and Activity Space Research

Over the last decade, two lines of inquiry have emerged from earlier investigations of adolescent neighborhood effects. First, researchers began incorporating space-time geography to study adolescent development within activity spaces or routine activity locations and settings. Second, cultural-developmental researchers implicated neighborhood settings in cultural development, to capture neighborhood effects on competencies and processes that are salient or normative for minoritized youth. We review the decade's studies on adolescent externalizing, internalizing, academic achievement, health, and cultural development within neighborhoods and activity spaces. We offer recommendations supporting decompartmentalization of cultural-developmental and activity space scholarship to advance the science of adolescent development in context.

The Influence of Ethnic-Racial Identity Developmental Processes on Global Bicultural Competence Development

This study investigated ethnic-racial identity (ERI) developmental processes (i.e., exploration and resolution) as pathways for adolescents to develop global bicultural competence, or the ability to meet heritage and host cultural demands. The sample included 749 U.S. Mexican-origin youth (30% Mexico-born; 51% male) followed from early-to-late adolescence (M_age  = 12.79-17.38 years). Longitudinal structural equation analyses revealed that youth's sequential engagement in ERI exploration and resolution (from early-to-middle adolescence) promoted global bicultural competence in late adolescence. The findings highlight the benefits of achieving clarity about one's ERI via self-exploration efforts for adolescents' ability to respond effectively to bicultural demands. This study advances mechanisms via which ERI development may support youth adaptation to multiple cultural systems.

A family stress model investigation of bicultural competence among U.S. Mexican-origin youth

Objectives: We investigated the influence of parental exposure to family stressors on parents' ethnic socialization practices and adolescents' cultural competencies among U.S. Mexican-origin families. Method: The sample included 749 U.S. Mexican-origin families followed for 5 years (two-parent families = 579; single-mother families = 170). At the first wave, mean age was 35.9 years for mothers, 38.1 years for fathers, and 10.42 years for youths (49% female). Most youths were U.S.-born (70.3%). Most parents were Mexico-born (74.3% to 79.9%). On average, Mexico-born parents had resided in the U.S. for 12.57 to 14.58 years. Both parents reported about 10 years of education. Annual family incomes ranged from less than $5,000 to more than $95,000. We conducted longitudinal structural equation analyses to test a culturally expanded Family Stress Model. Results: Mothers' exposures to enculturative language stressors disrupted maternal ethnic socialization, and in turn, undermined adolescents' bicultural competence. Conclusions: This work advances understanding of the family processes that set into motion youth's bicultural competence development. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

A Mixed Methods Approach to Examining Mexican-Origin Adolescents’ Use of Ethnic-Racial Labels in Neighborhood Contexts

We employed a mixed method design to describe Mexican-origin adolescents’ ethnic-racial label usage in the context of ethnically/racially segregated neighborhoods. Data come from three sources: 26 semistructured interviews with 14 Mexican-origin adolescents (mean age = 15.43, SD = 1.22), 64.3% female, living in neighborhood environments predominated by Latinos; neighborhood ( N = 9) data from the U.S. Census Bureau; and systematic social observations of neighborhood block faces ( N = 256). Using Key-Word-In-Context analysis, we found that adolescents used a variety of labels to describe themselves and members of their ethnic-racial group while discussing the strengths and challenges associated with their residential neighborhoods. Semistructured interview themes included adolescents’ references to cultural and social resources within neighborhoods, neighborhood challenges, ethnic-racial biases, and normative developmental processes. We examined label usage across interview themes and neighborhood characteristics derived from the census and systematic social observation data. Two triangulated findings emerged: (a) diversity in ethnic-racial label usage in the context of neighborhood resources and (b) greater restriction to the use of panethnic labels in the context of neighborhood challenges. Our study suggests that adolescents may be internalizing messages and symbols in their neighborhoods in ways that have implications for their ethnic-racial labeling and identity development.

U.S. Mexican-origin adolescents' bicultural competence and mental health in context

OBJECTIVES

We examined the prospective association (from Mage = 15.84 to 17.38 years) between bicultural competence and mental health among U.S. Mexican-origin adolescents relative to multiple (a) developmental niches, (b) components of bicultural competence, and (c) indicators of mental health.

METHOD

Participants included 749 adolescents (49% female, 29.7% Mexico-born) recruited during late childhood and followed through late adolescence. We used latent profile analyses to identify adolescents' developmental niches based on sociocultural characteristics of the family, school, and neighborhood contexts and multiple-group structural equation modeling to examine whether these niches moderated the association between bicultural competence and mental health.

RESULTS

We identified 5 distinct adolescents' developmental niches. We found no association between bicultural competence and internalizing symptoms across niches; bicultural facility predicted lower externalizing symptoms among adolescents developing in niches characterized by immigrant families and predominantly Latino schools and neighborhoods.

CONCLUSIONS

The diversity found among U.S. Mexican-origin adolescents' niches underscores the need to assess context broadly by including a range of settings. Studying multiple components of bicultural competence across numerous cultural domains may provide a better understanding of any mental health benefits of biculturalism. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Neighborhood structural characteristics and Mexican-origin adolescents' development

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.

Advancing the assessment of cultural orientation: A developmental and contextual framework of multiple psychological dimensions and social identities

This paper aims to advance the scientific understanding of the role of culture, particularly cultural orientation, in development and psychopathology. We advance a theoretical framework that conceptualizes cultural orientation as a developmental construct represented by multiple psychological dimensions and social identities, and influenced by the contexts in which individuals are embedded. This perspective suggests that cultural orientation changes within individuals over time as a function of their experiences with and memberships in multiple groups, including the mainstream and ethnic culture groups, as well as a function of their normative developmental changes (i.e., the development of cognitive, social, and emotional capabilities). In addition, this framework places the development of an ethnic culture social identity (e.g., an ethnic identity) and a mainstream culture social identity in broader developmental perspectives that recognize these as two of the many social identities that are simultaneously embedded within the individual's self-concept and that simultaneously influence one's cultural orientation. To support the successful integration of culture into the study of development and psychopathology, we describe how highly reliable and valid measures of cultural orientation, indexed by individuals’ social identities, are essential for generating a scientifically credible understanding of the role of cultural orientation in development and psychopathology. Further, we detail some best research practices associated with our developmental and contextual framework, and note some important considerations for researchers interested in studying cultural orientation, development, and psychopathology.

Toward a New Understanding of Ethnic-Racial Settings for Ethnic-Racial Identity Development

The purpose of this conceptual article is to advance theory and research on one critical aspect of the context of ethnic-racial identity (ERI) development: ethnic-racial settings, or the objective and subjective nature of group representation within an individual's context. We present a new conceptual framework that consists of four dimensions: (1) perspective (that settings can be understood in both objective and subjective terms); (2) differentiation (how groups are defined in a setting); (3) heterogeneity (the range of groups in a setting); and (4) proximity (the distance between the individual and the setting). Clarifying this complexity is crucial for advancing a more coherent understanding of how ethnic-racial settings are related to ERI development.

Impacts of Immigration Actions and News and the Psychological Distress of U.S. Latino Parents Raising Adolescents

PURPOSE

U.S. Latino parents of adolescents face unprecedented threats to family stability and well-being due to rapid and far-reaching transformations in U.S. immigration policy.

METHODS

Two hundred thirteen Latino parents of adolescents were recruited from community settings in a suburb of a large mid-Atlantic city to complete surveys assessing parents' psychological distress and responses to immigration actions and news. Univariate and bivariate analyses were conducted to describe the prevalence of parents' responses to immigration news and actions across diverse residency statuses. Multiple logistic regression models examined associations between immigration-related impacts and the odds of a parent's high psychological distress.

RESULTS

Permanent residents, temporary protected status, and undocumented parents reported significantly more negative immigration impacts on psychological states than U.S. citizens. Parents reporting frequent negative immigration-related impacts had a significantly higher likelihood of high psychological distress than did other parents, and these associations were maintained even when accounting for parents' residency status, gender, education, and experience with deportation or detention. The odds of a parent reporting high psychological distress due to negative immigration impacts ranged from 2.2 (p < .05) to 10.4 (p < .001).

CONCLUSIONS

This is one of the first empirical accounts of how recent immigration policy changes and news have impacted the lives of Latino families raising adolescent children. Harmful impacts were manifest across a range of parent concerns and behaviors and are strong correlates of psychological distress. Findings suggest a need to consider pathways to citizenship for Latina/o parents so that these parents, many of whom are legal residents, may effectively care for their children.