Short-term weekly effects of ethnic-racial discrimination on academic outcomes : ethnic-racial socialization and ethnic-racial identity as moderators

Abstract

African American and Latinx undergraduate students who attend historically white institutions continue to face incidents of discrimination which have been associated adverse health and academic outcomes (Del Toro & Hughes, 2019). Given the challenges associated with growing up as an ethnic-racial minority in society, many African American and Latinx young adults are often equipped with important culturally responsive familial and individual resources that may function as protector factors. Through ethnic-racial socialization messages received from parents, children learn how to navigate racialized contexts and develop an ethnic-racial identity, or an individual belief regarding the significance of their ethnic-racial group membership (Sellers et al., 1998). Ethnic-racial socialization and ethnic-racial identity are multidimensional constructs and certain domains of both have been found to moderate the effects of ethnic-racial discrimination on health outcomes (Sellers & Shelton, 2003). However, most of this work has been conducted using cross-sectional data on adolescent samples and surprisingly few studies have investigated the moderating roles of ethnic-racial socialization and ethnic-racial identity on the academic outcomes of college students who may frequently encounter ethnic-racial discrimination. In response to the gaps in literature, this study used a sample of 145 Black/African American and Hispanic/ Latinx (63 percent; 37 percent respectively) college students attending a historically white university in the Midwest to examine the short-term weekly effects of ethnic-racial discrimination on weekly academic outcomes (i.e., academic belonging, academic stress, negative academic behaviors). Weekly discrimination and academic data were reported over the course of 4 weeks. Additionally, this study examined the roles of key ethnic-racial socialization and ethnic-racial identity domains as moderators on relationships between discrimination and academic outcomes. Findings highlight that on weeks when individuals reported higher than usual ethnic-racial discrimination, they also reported lower than usual academic belonging, and higher than usual negative academic behaviors. Further, the impact of ethnic-racial discrimination varied according to the type and frequency of ethnic-racial socialization and ethnic-racial identity domains. There were no significant associations between ethnic-racial discrimination and academic stress.