School-Based Racial and Gender Discrimination among African American Adolescents: Exploring Gender Variation in Frequency and Implications for Adjustment

Abstract

The present study examined school-based racial and gender discrimination experiences among African American adolescents in Grade 8 (n = 204 girls; n = 209 boys). A primary goal was exploring gender variation in frequency of both types of discrimination and associations of discrimination with academic and psychological functioning among girls and boys. Girls and boys did not vary in reported racial discrimination frequency, but boys reported more gender discrimination experiences. Multiple regression analyses within gender groups indicated that among girls and boys, racial discrimination and gender discrimination predicted higher depressive symptoms and school importance and racial discrimination predicted self-esteem. Racial and gender discrimination were also negatively associated with grade point average among boys but were not significantly associated in girls’ analyses. Significant gender discrimination X racial discrimination interactions resulted in the girls’ models predicting psychological outcomes and in boys’ models predicting academic achievement. Taken together, findings suggest the importance of considering gender- and race-related experiences in understanding academic and psychological adjustment among African American adolescents.

Promotive and Corrosive Factors in African American Students’ Math Beliefs and Achievement

“…During 8th and 11th grade, teacher differential treatment did not significantly predict selfconcept of math ability or math task value. This was surprising, considering previous research linking perceptions of differential treatment to decreased (domain-general) levels of student motivation, self-efficacy beliefs, and achievement (Benner and Graham 2013;Byrd and Chavous 2011;Cogburn et al 2011).…”

“…MADICS does not afford the capacity to calculate intraclass correlations or other informative estimates of potential bias to standard errors, due to the complexity of its data structure (i.e., participants attended 23 middle schools and 14 high schools within Prince George's County alone) and the limited number of students sampled per school. On the other hand, the failure to account for clustering may entail quite minimal bias (Heck and Thomas 2015), and a series of studies have used MADICS without adjusting for potential standard error bias (e.g., Byrd and Chavous 2011;Chavous et al 2008;Cogburn et al 2011;Gutman et al, in press;Rapa and Diemer 2016;Wong et al 2003). These limitations are offset by the affordances provided by MADICS, such as the capacity to longitudinally examine the mediated pattern of relationships between teacher differential treatment and African American students' selfconcept of math ability and math task value, which were not examined in Benner et al (2015).…”

Self-Reported Experiences of Discrimination and Health: Scientific Advances, Ongoing Controversies, and Emerging Issues

“…There is a growing body of research on discrimination in children (Cogburn et al 2011, Coker et al 2009, Pachter & Coll 2009, Sanders-Phillips 2009), indicating that exposure to discriminatory events actually begins in childhood, which has important consequences for health in childhood and adolescence (Beatty & Matthews 2009, Brody et al 2014, Matthews et al 2005, Priest et al 2013, Zeiders et al 2014), and may also be linked to adverse health in later life. As one example, a small study of pregnant African-American women found that witnessing discrimination as a child --i.e.…”

School Racial Climate and the Academic Achievement of African American High School Students: The Mediating Role of School Engagement

“…Fisher and colleagues (2000) also found that 46% of African Americans youth reported that they were given a lower grade than they deserved because of their race or ethnicity. Research also provides evidence that African American students are more likely to be disciplined more harshly at school due to race (e.g., Chavous et al, 2008;Cogburn, Chavous & Griffin, 2011;Fisher et al, 2000;. In the same study, Fisher and colleagues (2000) found that when compared with students from other ethnic groups, African American students in particular felt that racial discrimination resulted in their wrongly being disciplined in school by teachers.…”