The Interactive Relationship between Ethnic-Racial Identity, Academic Expectations, and Neighborhood Ethnic-Racial Concentration: Variation by Gender and Ethnicity-Race
Restricted (Penn State Only)
Author:
Maereg, Tiyobista
Graduate Program:
Psychology
Degree:
Master of Science
Document Type:
Master Thesis
Date of Defense:
November 19, 2021
Committee Members:
Dawn Paula Witherspoon, Thesis Advisor/Co-Advisor Jenae Marie Neiderhiser, Committee Member Kristin Buss (she/her), Program Head/Chair Mayra Bamaca, Committee Member
Ethnic-racial identity (ERI) is recognized to be an important promotive and culturally
strength-based asset given its positive association with various development outcomes for youth of color (Butler-Barnes et al., 2018; Neblett et al., 2012). However, it is unclear whether this promotive asset retains its strength-based value across various contexts. Additionally, it is unknown whether similar associations are found within varying neighborhood ethnic-racial compositions. This project explored how neighborhood ethnic-racial concentration moderates the relationship between ERI and academic expectations. Utilizing a sample of both African American and Latinx youth, this study was interested in understanding how the moderation varies based on youth’s ethnic-racial background (i.e., African American vs. Latinx) and gender (i.e., boys vs. girls). Structural equation modeling (SEM) was conducted to explore the association between ERI and academics with among 105 African American (Mage = 13.51, SDage = 1.87; 55.2% female) and 89 Latinx (Mage = 13.38, SDage = 1.81; 58.4% female) youth. Additionally, a moderation and a multigroup analysis was conducted to examine the impact of neighborhood ethnic-composition and the variation of this moderation by gender and ethnicity-race. The results revealed that in neighborhoods with higher percentage of Latinx residents, centrality was positively associated with academic expectations. For boys living neighborhoods with higher percentage of Latinx residents, centrality was negatively associated with academic expectations. Post hoc analysis and discussion regarding findings are discussed below.