Individual (coping strategies), family (parent/child relationships), and community-based (religious involvement) variables were examined as potential protective factors for 224 low-income urban sixth-through eighth-grade African American adolescents. Each of those variables was examined as a moderator, and analyses were conducted to determine whether the association between stress and psychological symptoms was attenuated for youth endorsing positive coping strategies, strong parent/child relationships, and religious involvement. Results indicated that positive relationships with father figures buffered the effects of stress on externalizing symptoms for boys and for girls; religious involvement was protective for girls but not for boys. The sole coping strategy to demonstrate a protective effect was avoidant coping, which attenuated the relation between stress and externalizing symptoms for boys. Supplemental analyses focusing on specific subsets of stressful experiences indicated that avoidant coping and social support-seeking coping accentuated the relation between daily hassles and internalizing symptoms for girls.

In this study, the authors evaluated the effectiveness of a cultural intervention for increasing cultural values and beliefs Fifty-nine African American girls in early adolescence participated in a 15-session cultural program or in an activity comparison group Measures of ethnic identity, gender roles, and relational aggression were administered at pretest and posttest There were significant increases in ethnic identity and a marginally significant increase in androgynous gender roles for girls in the intervention group but not the comparison group Findings also revealed that the intervention decreased relational aggression Implications for early adolescent African American girls’participation in culturally enhanced prevention programs are discussed

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