Relationships Between Perceived School Climate, Exposure to Community Violence and Mental Health Problems in Asian-American And Latinx Youth
Abigail Gonzalez Bejarano, Marjorie Llanera, Blanche Wright, M.A., & Anna Lau, Ph.D. University of California, Los Angeles
Second Independent Research Project
URPS 2019-2020
Introduction
School-to-Prison Pipeline
The school-to-prison pipeline refers to a trend of disciplinary policies that increase the likelihood of children becoming involved with the criminal justice system. This disproportionately affects low-income students, students of color, and students with disabilities and mental health conditions (Boston University School of Social Work, 2019).
Why Should You Care?
Youth spend an average of 40 hours a week at school for several years (K-12), heavily impacting their development and mental health
Exclusion and marginalization at school is associated with mental health problems following them into adulthood, creating issues in terms of not being able to adapt well to work environments and function as good citizens (Martin, 2006)
School climate as well as the outside environments are detrimental in shaping a student’s adaptability and can lead to distress & mental health problems
Two Important Factors to Consider
For the purposes of this research project we decided to focus on community violence and school climate to see how these two different environments influence youths’ mental health difficulties, specifically youth of color. The reason we focused on community violence is because existing research has shown that high levels of community violence have been associated with higher internalizing and trauma-related symptoms in youth. As discussed earlier school climate plays a significant role in the school-to-prison pipeline so much so that having supportive leaders, teachers, administration, staff, and academic instruction can actually help reduce these rates!
Community Violence: Has been associated with higher internalizing and trauma-related symptoms in youth (Ho, 2008)
School Climate: Having supportive leaders, teachers, administration, staff, and academic instruction can help minimize school to prison pipeline rates (Christle et al., 2005)
Exploring Risk and Protective Factors
A protective factor simply means a preventative event/care that can protect or even lessen distress
A risk factor on the other hand are events that trigger the distress and are associated with mental health problems
In this study, we are saying that having a positive school bond can be a protective factor while experiences of school disenfranchisement and community violence are not
Why Asian-Americans and Latinx Students?
Both Asian-American and Latinx youth may be at a greater risk for mental health concerns
Immigrant youth are more vulnerable to cultural barriers, language barriers, bullying, and discrimination (Sung Hong, 2013)
Asian-Americans have been found to experience more internalizing mental health difficulties, while Latinx students have been found to experience more externalizing mental health difficulties (Anderson & Mayes, 2010; McLaughlin & Nolen-Hoeksema, 2007)
Also, when conducting our literature review we found that the majority of existing literature compares Asian-Americans to Whites or Latinx to Whites but rarely compares these two groups independently from other ethnic/racial groups
Current Project
Aim 1: Examine relationships between school bond, school disenfranchisement, community violence, and student mental health
Hypothesis: School Bond is a protective factor, while Community Violence and School Disenfranchisement are risk factors to mental health difficulties in racial/ethnic minority youth (Free, 2014; Ruiz et al., 2018; Wilkin & Kuperminc’s, 2010; Gorman-Smith & Tolan, 1998; Ozer &Weinstein, 2004)
Aim 2: Examine differences in relationships Between Community Violence, School Disenfranchisement, and Student Mental Health by race/ethnicity
Hypothesis: There will be a stronger link between risk factors and externalizing problems for Latinx students and stronger links between risk factors and internalizing problems for Asian American students (Anderson & Mayes, 2010; McLaughlin & Nolen-Hoeksema, 2007)
Preparing the Data
Demographics
Our selected sample was 2,172 students, consisting of only Asian-Americans and Latinx youth from a Title 1 urban school district in the LA County area, grade levels 4th-12th. This means that the school is federally funded, most of their student population comes from a low-income household, and the majority of students receive free-and-reduced lunch. These students also come from primarily first, second, and third-generation immigrant families. The data was provided, collected, and entered under Dr. Anna S. Lau/UCLA Culture and Minority Mental Health Lab.
Design
A cross-sectional survey was conducted to assess school climate in grades 4-12.
Materials
Materials used for this study included the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ), a 25-item questionnaire, used to measure emotional symptoms, conduct, hyperactivity, and peer problems on a 0 through 6 Likert scale, with 0 being not true and 6 being certainly true (Goodman, Meltzer, & Bailey, 1998).
School climate was measured with 3 different components, each on a 1-4 scale from strongly disagree to strongly agree. We only focused on 2 components, School Disenfranchisement and School Bond. Community Violence was measured by the sum of the number of exposure to community violence events within the past year.
Examples questions are provided
Procedure
The school climate survey was administered to a random sample of students in Grades 4 through 12. The sample was stratified by grade and school campus (Bear, Finer, Guo, & Lau, 2014). All students in selected classrooms present on the date of data collection participated. They were instructed to anonymously complete the survey during non-instructional class time (Bear et al., 2014, p. 391).
Analyzing the Data in SPSS
Running Frequency Analyses:
We are doing this to learn about the data we are working with. We will only focus on race and grade to learn more about the student sample.
Explanation:
After running the frequency analyses we are provided with tables that show us only the data we selected. We see that there is a total of 2,681 students, grade levels are 4th-12th, and race is composed of 8 categories. The frequency table provides more details by showing how many students are in each category. For example, there are 1,198 female-identifying students.
Creating a Filter:
Since we only want to focus on Asian-Americans and Latinx students, we need to create a filter so that only our selected sample will be used when running analyses. After creating the filter we see that only Asian and Hispanic are selected, making our selected sample to be 2,172 students.
If you saw my first independent research project, we grouped Asian and Hawaiian/Pacific Islanders together and Hispanic and Hispanic/White together. We decided not to do that this time because those that identified in the survey as Hawaiian/Pacific Islander did not identify as Asian. For Hispanics, we cannot say that all Hispanics are Latinx. Being Hispanic just means that you come from a primarily Spanish-speaking country, but that does not necessarily mean you are Latinx (e.g. Spain).
Running Multiple Regressions Analyses:
Our first aim was trying to examine the relationships Between School Climate (Bond & Disenfranchisement), Community Violence, and Mental Health Difficulties within an Asian-American and Latinx student sample. To do this we ran regression analyses where multiple independent variables were run at one time to help us explore how each variable predicts mental health difficulties generally by using the SDQ Total score.
Explanation:
As mentioned before, statistically significant results are those that are p < .05. All of our results are statistically significant, the values were p < .001. By looking at the B unstandardized coefficients, this number tells us the relationship between the independent variable and the dependent variable. We see a negative association between School Bond and Mental Health Difficulties, and a positive association with School Disenfranchisement and Community Violence.
Running Moderation Analyses:
Our second aim was to examine differences in relationships between Community Violence, School Disenfranchisement, and Student Mental Health by race/ethnicity. The moderators in these analyses are Asian-American and Latinx students. In total, we ran 8 moderation, but only 2 came out significant.
Explanation:
Before running any moderation analyses we first need to turn our categorical variables into numeric ones. If we do not complete this step our analyses will not run or will be incorrect. In this case, we needed to turn our race variable into a dummy one, making it a new numeric variable.
After creating our dummy variable we needed to create the interaction term, this new variable would show how race/ethnicity moderates the relationship between our independent variables and dependent variables.
We ran a total of 8 moderation models in order to answer aim 2. We had two independent variables, Community Violence & School Disenfranchisement, and four dependent variables, emotional, conduct, hyperactivity, and peer problems. Each model was moderated by race/ethnicity (Asian-American & Latinx).
Out of the 8 moderation models, only 2 were statistically significant. The first significant model was School Disenfranchisement & Conduct Problems moderated by race/ethnicity. The second one was Community Violence and Peer Problems moderated by race/ethnicity.
Summarizing Findings/Visiualizations
Aim 1:
Just a reminder that the aim one was trying to examine the Relationships Between School Climate, Community Violence, and Mental Health Difficulties.
School bond was a protective factor such that low levels of school bond were related to overall higher emotional, conduct, hyperactivity, and peer problems.
Community violence and disenfranchisement are risk factors to mental health difficulties, such that a higher reporting of these events was related to higher mental health difficulties in youth.
Aim 2:
Just a reminder that aim two was trying to examine differences in relationships between Community Violence, School Disenfranchisement, and Student Mental Health by race/ethnicity.
In our first significant model, we see that Asian-American students showed a stronger link between community violence exposure and peer problems. This means that over their Latinx peers, Asian-American students experienced significantly more peer problems the more they experienced community violence events.
In our second significant model, we see that Race moderated the relationship between School Disenfranchisement & Conduct Problems. Consistent with our hypothesis Latinx youth experienced slightly higher levels of conduct problems than their Asian-American peers. For Latinx students, the more they experienced feeling unwelcomed at school the more they struggled with conduct problems.
Aim 1
Aim 2
Next Steps
Discussion/Conclusions:
Asian-American youth showed more peer problems in relation to community violence while Latinx youth had more hyperactivity problems
There need to be recognition of their mental health needs
Latinx youth showed more conduct problems in relation to school disenfranchisement
Although schools can generally not control students’ exposure to community violence, school bonding is a uniformly protective factor for Latinx and Asian-American students and can be bolstered by schools by creating a safe, respectful, and connected culture
Schools should also focus on detecting and reducing peer problems among youth since this was a significant problem experienced for all Asian-American and Latinx students who experienced events of community violence and high levels of school disenfranchisement
To increase access to quality mental health care in the Alhambra USD (where the students are from) they developed research-informed approaches to link the school system with the local mental health resources through the Gateway to Success Program
Schools should also focus on detecting and reducing peer problems among racial/ethnic youth
Peer problems can lead to severe mental health problems including depression, social anxiety, suicidal ideation, loneliness, and low perceived social support, especially during early adolescence (Gallagher, Prinstein, Simon, & Spirito, 2014)
References
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Boston University School of Social Work. (2019, April 25). The School-to-Prison Pipeline is a Public Health Crisis for Youth of Color; BU Panel Shows How to Break the Cycle. Retrieved from https://ciswh.org/school-to-prison-pipeline-public-health-crisis-for-youth-of-color
Dixie J. Koo, Anthony A. Peguero & Zahra Shekarkhar (2012): The “Model Minority” Victim: Immigration, Gender, and Asian American Vulnerabilities to Violence at School, Journal of Ethnicity in Criminal Justice, 10:2, 129-147
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