Adolescents' experiences of peer ethnic/racial victimization and school engagement in everyday life: sleep as a moderator

STUDY OBJECTIVES

Stressful ethnic/racial experiences, such as peer ethnic/racial victimization, may harm adolescents' adjustment. Using a daily diary design, the current study examined how same-night and previous-night sleep may moderate the within-person associations between peer ethnic/racial victimization and school engagement.

METHODS

The analytic sample consisted of 133 ninth graders (Mage = 14.54 years old; 44% Black, 21% White, 16% Latinx, 5% Native, 4% Asian, and 9% other). Adolescents reported their peer ethnic/racial victimization experiences and school engagement every day for 14 consecutive days. Sleep was measured objectively by actigraphy watches daily during the 14 days.

RESULTS

Multilevel analyses identified significant interactions between peer ethnic/racial victimization and same-night time in bed and latency for next-day engagement. The negative association between victimization and next-day school engagement was only significant when adolescents had shorter time in bed and longer latency than their typical levels that night, supporting the recovery role of sleep (ie, same-night sleep helps adolescents recover from victimization). There was also a significant interaction between previous-night time in bed and today's peer ethnic/racial victimization for same-day school engagement. The negative association between victimization and same-day school engagement was only significant when adolescents had shorter time in bed than their typical levels the previous night, supporting a preparatory hypothesis of sleep (ie, sleep helps prepare adolescents for next-day victimization). Neither previous-night nor same-night sleep efficiency moderated the association between victimization and school engagement.

CONCLUSIONS

Findings highlighted sleep as an important bioregulatory protective factor that may alleviate the challenges associated with ethnic/racial victimization.

Investigating the relation between ethnic-racial identity and classroom engagement among Cherokee adolescents: Cultural socialization as a moderator

OBJECTIVE

Ethnic-racial identity is an important factor that can promote classroom engagement among ethnic-racial minority adolescents. However, the relationship between ethnic-racial identity and academic engagement remains severely understudied among Native American youth, who report some of the lowest levels of classroom engagement among ethnic-racial minority youth in the United States. Thus, the present study aimed to investigate the relation between ethnic-racial identity and classroom engagement among Cherokee youth. Further, we sought to examine the role of parental cultural socialization as a factor that could moderate this association.

METHOD

The analytic sample consisted of 211 Cherokee adolescents (M = 12.72, SD = .97; female = 52%). Participants were recruited from Grades 6 to 8 from one tribal (60% or n = 126) and two public (40% or n = 85) middle schools. Adolescents completed survey measures of ethnic-racial centrality, private regard, public regard, parental pride socialization, parental preparation for bias socialization, and classroom engagement.

RESULTS

Analyses showed that ethnic-racial centrality and regard were positively associated with classroom engagement. Furthermore, pride socialization enhanced the relation between private regard and engagement. Unexpectedly, preparation for bias mitigated the relation between public regard and engagement.

CONCLUSIONS

The present study demonstrates an important association between ethnic-racial identity and classroom engagement for Cherokee youth. Furthermore, findings highlight the importance of parental cultural socialization as a potential malleable factor that can enhance or diminish the relation between ethnic-racial identity and classroom engagement for Cherokee adolescents. These results suggest that encouraging parental cultural socialization, particularly pride socialization, may be beneficial in promoting classroom engagement for Cherokee youth. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Setting the Ground Rules: Use and Practice of Ground Rules in Child Forensic Interviews

Most child forensic interviewing protocols recommend that interviewers administer a series of ground rules to emphasize concepts that are important to accurately answering interview questions. Limited research has examined whether interviewers follow ground rules recommendations in real-world forensic interviews. In this study, we examined how often highly trained interviewers presented and practiced each of the recommended ground rules. We also examined whether children accurately responded to practice questions. We coded transcripts from 241 forensic interviews of 4- to 12-year-old children conducted by interviewers in the United States who were largely trained using the Ten Step Investigative Interview. Results demonstrated that interviewers routinely presented and practiced the ground rules, but this significantly varied by children's age. Additionally, children often accurately responded to practice questions, but younger children were less accurate than older children. Taken together, results highlight that interviewers may deviate from ground rules recommendations based on the characteristics of the child, which has implications for both future research and practice.