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Abstract: Identifying and promoting students’ social-emotional strengths is essential in building their mental health. Covitality, representing the co-occurrence of psychological strengths, is a helpful framework for characterizing students’ well-being. This study used latent profile analysis to identify adolescents’ (n = 11,217; 50.3% female, 37.8% male; grades 9 [33.7%], 10 [21.0%], 11 [28.9%], and 12 [16.5%]) covitality patterns across 12 social-emotional health domains. We investigated whether student demographic characteristics (i.e., sex, parent educational attainment, ethnic identification) were related to profile membership. We further examined profiles’ relations to students’ proximal academic and mental health outcomes, including self-reported grades, school connectedness, life satisfaction, and psychological distress. Four covitality profiles were identified—High, Moderate-High, Moderate-Low, and Low. Profile membership was statistically significantly related to students’ sex and socioeconomic circumstances but with small effect sizes. We identified consistent differences across covitality profiles on student self-reported proximal outcomes. Overall, students in profiles with higher covitality levels (High and Moderate-High) reported (a) higher grades, school connectedness, and life satisfaction and (b) less psychological distress, with students in the High profile reporting the most favorable outcomes. Assessing students’ strengths and providing interventions focused on building strengths across domains are recommended.

Abstract: Managing the COVID-19 pandemic involved implementing public health policies that disrupted students’ lives, creating conditions that substantially influenced their mental health and well-being. Subsequently, research focused on the mental health sequelae of increased depression and anxiety, but the possible impacts on adolescents’ social well-being have been largely unexamined. Social well-being is essential to youth’s overall mental health and can be diminished even without symptoms of depression and anxiety. This report explored heterogeneities in changes in adolescents’ social well-being from pre-COVID-19 to post-restrictions using longitudinal data from adolescents attending middle and high schools in California (N = 1,299; 49.9% female). Data collection involved four observations. Participants completed a school-based mental health wellness survey annually from 2019 to 2022. A latent profile analysis identified five profiles demonstrating distinctive social well-being trajectories. Two ordered profiles included Stable-High (28%) and Stable-Low (26%) patterns. Three groups represented nonordered profiles labeled as Succumbing (20%), Languishing (14%), and Recovering (12%). Pervasive decreases in social well-being were observed, and a significant portion of the adolescents did not recover to their pre-COVID-19 level by 2022. Adolescents in the Stable-High and Recovering profiles showed better psychological well-being, optimism, and school connectedness and less distress than their counterparts in the other three profiles. Mental health professionals should be aware of the pandemic’s effects on adolescents’ social well-being. Lower levels of social well-being may be a risk factor for adolescents developing generally jaded attitudes about their social networks and diminishing their potential engagement with sources of social support.

Schools are an essential setting for mental health supports and services for students. To support student well-being, schools engage in universal mental health screening to identify students in need of support and to provide surveillance data for district-wide or state-wide policy changes. Mental health data have been collected via anonymous and self-identified response formats depending on the purpose of the screening (i.e., surveillance and screening, respectively). However, most surveys do not provide psychometric evidence for use in both types of response formats. The current study examined whether responses to the Social Emotional Health Survey--Secondary (SEHS-S), a school mental health survey, are comparable when administered using anonymous versus self-identified response formats. The study participants were from one high school and completed the SEHS-S using self-identified (n = 1,700) and anonymous (n = 1,667) formats. Full measurement invariance was found across the two response formats. Both substantial and minimal latent mean differences were detected. Implications for the use and interpretation of the SEHS-S for schoolwide mental health are discussed.

Unprecedented financial and emotional stress, paired with measures to slow the spread of COVID-19 (e.g., school closures), place youth at risk for experiencing increased rates of abuse. We analyzed data from New York City's Administration for Children's Services to investigate the frequency of child maltreatment prevention service case openings during this time. Longitudinal counts of case openings were compiled for January through June of the years 2014-2020. An independent samples Kruskal-Wallis H-test suggested that pre-quarantine case openings were significantly larger than case openings during quarantine. To account for the possible influence of other historical events impacting data, a secondary Kruskal-Wallis H-test was conducted comparing only the 4 months of quarantine data available to the 4 months immediately preceding quarantine orders. The second independent samples Kruskal-Wallis H-test again suggested that pre-quarantine case openings were significantly larger than case openings during quarantine. A Poisson regression model further supported these findings, estimating that the odds of opening a new child maltreatment prevention case during quarantine declined by 49.17%. These findings highlight the severity of COVID-19 impacts on child maltreatment services and the gap between demand for services and service accessibility. We conclude with recommendations for local governments, community members, and practitioners.

The Social Emotional Health Survey-Secondary-2020 (SEHS-S-2020) is a well-studied option for assessing social emotional health to support students within a multitiered system of school support. While a growing body of literature supports the SEHS-S-2020 measure for assessing student covitality, there is less validation evidence specifically for middle-school-aged students. The present study aimed to fill this gap in the literature by examining its use for younger adolescents. Study participants were from two samples, including a cross-sectional sample with 9,426 students in Grades 7-8 from 32 counties in California and a longitudinal sample with 414 students in Grades 6-8 from two middle schools. Data analyses examined structural validity, internal consistency, measurement invariance, criterion validity, predictive validity, and response stability. Results indicate excellent fit indices for a four-level higher-order measurement model, with adequate concurrent and one-year predictive validity coefficients, supporting the use of the SEHS-S-2020 measure with young adolescents in middle school settings. The discussion focuses on implications for assessing students' psychosocial assets, universal school-based screening, and cultural and intersectionality considerations when interpreting SEHS-S-2020 responses.Supplementary informationThe online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s40688-022-00411-x.

Culturally responsive assessment practices include validated measures appropriate for use with diverse populations. Considering the increasing population of Latinx students in US schools, measures need co-validated English and Spanish (Social and Emotional Health Survey (SEHS)) language forms. This study examined the SEHS-Secondary with Latinx students who completed a form in either Spanish or English. With a matched sample of 1404 Latinx students across 113 California schools, the analyses examined the factor structure, measurement invariance, and latent trait factor means of students who completed the SEHS in either Spanish or English. The factor structure was invariant across groups with some latent mean differences observed. Educational practice implications are considered.

The original Social Emotional Distress Survey--Secondary (SEDS-S) assesses adolescents' past month's experiences of psychological distress. Given the continued need for and use of brief measures of student social-emotional distress, this study examined a five-item version (SEDS-S-Brief) to evaluate its use for surveillance of adolescents' wellness in schools. Three samples completed the SEDS-S-Brief. Sample 1 was a cross-sectional sample of 105,771 students from 113 California secondary schools; responses were used to examine validity evidence based on internal structure. Sample 2 consisted of 10,770 secondary students who also completed the Social Emotional Health Survey-Secondary-2020, Mental Health Continuum--Short Form, Multidimensional Student Life Satisfaction Scale, and selected Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance items (chronic sadness and suicidal ideation). Sample 2 responses examined validity evidence based on relations to other variables. Sample 3 consisted of 773 secondary students who completed the SEDS-S-Brief annually for 3 years, providing response stability coefficients. The SEDS-S-Brief was invariant across students based on sex, grade level, and Latinx status, supporting its use across diverse groups in schools. Additional analyses indicated moderate to strong convergent and discriminant validity characteristics and 1- and 2-year temporal stability. The findings advance the field toward comprehensive mental health surveillance practices to inform services for youth in schools.

The authoritative school climate construct, or the degree to which schools demonstrate student support and disciplinary structure, predicts several important student outcomes (e.g., racial suspension gap, student disengagement). To better understand this construct, we used multilevel latent class analysis to identify latent classes of student perceptions of school climate, model school-level variation in student experiences, and examine the relation between school climate and student and school demographics. Using a nationally representative sample of public high students in the USA, results show that student perceptions of school climate fall into four classes, "Authoritative," "Permissive," "Authoritarian," and "Uninvolved," which are consistent with authoritative school climate literature. Student gender, ethnicity/race, and SES all impact a student's likelihood of membership in these classes. Schools tend to have a predominant school climate experience, although considerable variability in individual student experiences within a school exists. Findings address gaps in the authoritative school climate literature and have important implications for future research and policy.

Endeavors supporting college students' positive psychosocial development are gaining attention and investment in various countries and social contexts. Higher education experiences provide new academic, social, and vocational advancement opportunities at a critical developmental stage. However, higher education can also cause distress due to the challenges and stressors present during this new stage of increased independence. The Social Emotional Health Survey-Higher Education (SEHS-HE) assesses the core psychosocial strengths of individuals transitioning from secondary schools into institutions of higher education (IHE) to aid campus student support services. The present study sought to extend the SEHS-HE research by examining its application with college student samples from Mexico (n = 4,207), United States (n = 1,638), and Spain (n = 1,734). Confirmatory factor analyses investigated the hypothesized SEHS-HE higher-order factor model. The Mexico sample returned an acceptable model fit, but the USA and Spain samples had a suboptimal fit; hence, we explored alternative models. A two-level structure had full invariance for all three samples. This study extends the current scholarship on the conceptual model and psychometric properties of SEHS-HE. The discussion focuses on implications for future research to enhance SEHS-HE in national and cross-national research and practice.

Latent class analysis (LCA) is a useful statistical approach for understanding heterogeneity in a population. This article provides a pedagogical introduction to LCA modeling and provides an example of its use to understand youths' daily coping strategies. The analytic procedures are outlined for choosing the number of classes and integration of the LCA variable within a structural equation model framework, specifically a latent class moderation model, and a detailed table provides a summary of relevant modeling steps. This applied example demonstrates the modeling context when the LCA variable is moderating the association between a covariate and two outcome variables. Results indicate that students' coping strategies moderate the association between social stress and negative mood; however, they do not moderate the social stress-positive mood association. Online supplemental materials include R (MplusAutomation) code to automate the enumeration procedure, ML three-step auxiliary variable integration, and the generation of figures for visually depicting LCA results.

Measures of positive well-being are needed to support the shift away from a deficit-based approach to mental health. This study examined one measure, the Mental Health Continuum-Short Form (MHC-SF), as a measure of positive well-being used in school-based mental health monitoring efforts. This study used latent profile analysis (LPA) to explore the mental health classifications of 10,880 California high school students' responses to MHC-SF emotional, psychological, and social well-being items. Five latent mental wellness profiles emerged, including two ordered profiles (i.e., High Well-Being and Low Well-Being) and three profiles spanning the two ordered profiles. The High Well-Being profile had the most favorable psychological adjustment, and the three moderate well-being range profiles had differentiated functioning. Informing the utility of the MHC-SF, this study also compared the MHC-SF categorical diagnostic criteria with the LPA's empirical classification approach and found the two classification approaches to be congruent. The findings provide an impetus for educators to attend to students in moderate well-being ranges and emphasize promoting positive mental well-being as an essential component of school-based mental health services.

AbstractRobust evidence links students’ positive mental health with academic achievement and provides a compelling rationale for developing and refining strength-based assessments. The Social Emotional Health Survey–Secondary (SEHS-S) assesses adolescents’ social and emotional skills and positive psychological dispositions. Previous studies provide reliability and validity evidence; nonetheless, there is a need for continued refinement and validation across diverse groups. The current study revised and standardized the updated SEHS-S-2020 to validate further its use in secondary schools (Grades 9–12) with a large, diverse adolescent sample. Study participants included 72,740 from 113 California schools (structural validation sample), 10,757 students from 15 randomly selected California schools (criterion validation sample), and 707 students from four additional California schools (test-retest sample). Data analyses examined structural validity, measurement invariance, criterion validity, internal consistency, and response stability. Results supported the SEHS-S-2020 validity across diverse groups of youth in various contexts. The discussion focuses on implications for assessing students’ psychosocial assets and universal school-based screening.

This study built upon research examining the effects of diversity in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) fields and higher education by investigating the relationship between student perceptions of campus diversity and classroom engagement for first- and second-year Latinx and White students at two structurally diverse institutions. Findings suggested that perceptions of campus climate have a positive and significant relationship with classroom engagement--which is an important indicator of overall grade point average.

The Psychological Sense of School Membership (PSSM) scale has been used for more than 20 years to measure students' sense of school belonging, yet its psychometric properties have had limited examination with pre-adolescent children. This study investigated the utility and psychometrics of the PSSM in three primary school samples from the United States, China, and the United Kingdom. Exploratory factor analysis revealed good fit for a unidimensional factor structure in the US sample, which was subsequently confirmed in all three samples. Partial invariance across all three samples and full invariance across pairwise samples (United States and United Kingdom; United Kingdom and China) was found. Path analyses revealed significant positive relations of the PSSM total belonging score with gratitude and prosocial behavior, and significant negative relations with symptoms of distress. Future directions and implications are discussed. [For the corresponding grantee submission, see ED588824.]

Contemporary mental health assessment conceptualizations focus on both well-being and distress. This study presents initial validation information for the "Social Emotional Distress Survey--Secondary" (SEDS-S), which was designed for school-based complete mental health screening that employs brief self-report measures of well-being and distress. The SEDS-S structure was investigated using two independent samples of U.S. high school students (N = 3,780). Findings from exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses suggested a one-factor model of distress with good model fit. Path analyses revealed significant positive relations of the SEDS-S distress factor with symptoms of anxiety and depression, and a significant negative relation with life satisfaction and strengths scores. Future research directions and use in school-based screening applications are discussed. [For the corresponding grantee submission, see ED585101.]

AbstractRobust evidence links students’ positive mental health with academic achievement and provides a compelling rationale for developing and refining strength-based assessments. The Social Emotional Health Survey–Secondary (SEHS-S) assesses adolescents’ social and emotional skills and positive psychological dispositions. Previous studies provide reliability and validity evidence; nonetheless, there is a need for continued refinement and validation across diverse groups. The current study revised and standardized the updated SEHS-S-2020 to validate further its use in secondary schools (Grades 9–12) with a large, diverse adolescent sample. Study participants included 72,740 from 113 California schools (structural validation sample), 10,757 students from 15 randomly selected California schools (criterion validation sample), and 707 students from four additional California schools (test-retest sample). Data analyses examined structural validity, measurement invariance, criterion validity, internal consistency, and response stability. Results supported the SEHS-S-2020 validity across diverse groups of youth in various contexts. The discussion focuses on implications for assessing students’ psychosocial assets and universal school-based screening.

Background and objectivesProviding appropriate and culturally sensitive care to the rapidly growing number of U.S. Latinx older adults with psychiatric conditions presents a major public health challenge. We know little about older Latinx adults' perceived causes of mental health problems, offering clinicians limited insight to guide successful and culturally congruent treatment. Moreover, there is a paucity of mental health research examining heterogeneity in how Latinx individuals may attribute mental health symptoms. The present study sought to identify how Latinx and non-Latinx older adults attributed the sources of their mental health problems and how these types of attributions differ by ethnicity.Research design and methodsThis study analyzed data collected from a retrospective chart review and survey of 673 adults aged 55-95 years (430 Mexican origin and 244 non-Latinx) from a rural psychiatric outpatient clinic near the California-Mexico border. We conducted stratified latent class analysis (LCA) by race/ethnicity to explore the mental health attribution beliefs of Mexican-origin and non-Latinx clinic patients.ResultsDifferent LCA patterns for Mexican-origin Latinx versus non-Latinx groups were found. For non-Latinx adults, there was a class of individuals who attributed their mental health issues to social and financial problems. For Mexican-origin adults, there was a class of individuals who attributed their mental health issues to spiritual and/or supernatural factors, unaffected by acculturation level, depressive symptom severity, and time spent in the United States, but differing by gender. We found within-group heterogeneity: Not all Mexican-origin or non-Latinx older adults were alike in how they conceptualized their mental health.Discussion and implicationsMexican-origin Latinx and non-Latinx older adults attributed their mental health issues to different causes. More Mexican-origin older adults attributed their symptoms to spiritual causes, even after controlling for contextual factors. Further research is needed to determine whether attribution beliefs are affected by specific mental health diagnoses and other cultural factors not measured in this study.

Most disaster mental health research focuses on the relationship between disaster exposure and distress, often neglecting its influence on social-emotional health, despite implications for resilience and well-being after the disaster. Following multiple floods in Texas, a sample of 486 youth aged 10-19 years old (M = 13.74 years, SD = 2.57; 52.9% male) completed measures of disaster exposure, life stressors since the disaster, and social-emotional health. Using mixture regression modeling, we examined differences in the relationship between life stressors and social-emotional health across latent classes of disaster exposure (high, moderate, community, and low exposure). After accounting for mean levels of life stressors, the mean levels of social-emotional health did not differ across exposure classes; however, the strength of the relationship between life stressors and social-emotional health did. Youth in the high exposure group had the highest mean level of life stressors since the disaster. Thus, each additional life stressor did not result in changes in social-emotional health, suggesting saturated stress levels. For youth in the moderate and community exposure classes, increases in life stressors did lower social-emotional health, perhaps pushing them into stress overload. For the low exposure group, life stressors did not have an influence. This has implications for postdisaster mental health screening and support, tailored by levels of exposure and attuned to ongoing stressors that may impact long-term social-emotional health. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

As frontline education providers, teachers have encountered many challenges since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. To better understand teacher well-being during this crisis and inform practices to support them, this study employed an online survey with a mixed-methods approach to assess teacher well-being and the support they need to work effectively. A sample of 151 elementary school teachers in the United States was recruited in summer 2020 to complete an online survey through emails and social media outlets. Participants were asked to provide retrospective reports of their experiences teaching in spring 2020 after schools closed due to COVID-19. The majority of participants reported feeling emotionally exhausted and high levels of task stress and job ambiguity. Consistent with hypotheses, path analysis testing a model informed by the job demand--resources framework indicated that task stress and job ambiguity were robustly related to teacher well-being. Moreover, three job resources (i.e., teaching efficacy, school connectedness, and teaching autonomy) were related to job satisfaction. A moderation finding revealed that teachers who reported high teaching efficacy felt emotionally exhausted when they were unclear of their job duties. Thematic analysis of responses to an open-ended question found that teachers would feel supported if provided resources to develop competence in distance learning, workplace emotional support, and flexibility during COVID-19. The findings identified a critical need to allocate more attention and resources to support teacher psychological health by strengthening emotional support, autonomy, and teaching efficacy.

Using latent profile analysis (LPA), this study empirically identified dual-factor mental health subtypes, with a goal of examining structural stability of emerging latent classes over three high school years. Profiles relations with distal indicators of well-being, psychosocial distress, and self-reported grades were examined to explore the validity of emerging classes. A sample of 332 high school students reported on their social-emotional strengths and psychological distress during the fall term of their ninth-, tenth-, and eleventh-grade years. In Grade 12, students reported on measures assessing their grades and social-emotional experiences. Independent LPAs for each grade year yielded four mental health subtypes - complete mental health, moderately mentally healthy, symptomatic but content, and troubled - and provided evidence for the structural stability of the dual-factor mental health construct. Across high school years, most students were in the complete or moderately mentally healthy classes, with the troubled class consistently representing the smallest proportion of the sample. Students in classes with higher levels of strengths and lower levels of distress reported higher grades, prosocial contribution to community, and higher life satisfaction, and fewer symptoms of anxiety and depression. Implications and future directions for research and school-based practice are discussed.

Using latent profile analysis (LPA), this study empirically identified dual-factor mental health subtypes, with a goal of examining structural stability of emerging latent classes over three high school years. Profiles' relations with distal indicators of well-being, psychosocial distress, and self-reported grades were examined to explore the validity of emerging classes. A sample of 332 high school students reported on their social-emotional strengths and psychological distress during the fall term of their ninth-, tenth-, and eleventh-grade years. In Grade 12, students reported on measures assessing their grades and social-emotional experiences. Independent LPAs for each grade year yielded four mental health subtypes - complete mental health, moderately mentally healthy, symptomatic but content, and troubled - and provided evidence for the structural stability of the dual-factor mental health construct. Across high school years, most students were in the complete or moderately mentally healthy classes, with the troubled class consistently representing the smallest proportion of the sample. Students in classes with higher levels of strengths and lower levels of distress reported higher grades, prosocial contribution to community, and higher life satisfaction, and fewer symptoms of anxiety and depression. Implications and future directions for research and school-based practice are discussed.

Dual-factor models of mental health are increasingly supported but little is known about longitudinal trends in dual-factor mental health. The current study used latent profile analysis (LPA) to empirically identify dual-factor mental health classes at each of Grades 9 through 12 and latent transition analysis (LTA) to examine stability of classes over four academic years. A sample of 875 adolescents from two cohorts reported on their social-emotional strengths and psychological distress. Cross-sectional LPAs for each grade year resulted in four mental health classes: complete mental health, moderately mentally healthy, symptomatic but content, and troubled. An LTA model indicated that the complete mental health class exhibited the most stability, followed by moderately mentally healthy and symptomatic but content classes. The troubled class exhibited the least stability. Less than 24% of participants remained in the same mental health class across all years. Findings support regular monitoring of students dual-factor mental health to accurately inform mental health promotion, prevention, and intervention efforts.

Dual-factor models of mental health are increasingly supported but little is known about longitudinal trends in dual-factor mental health. The current study used latent profile analysis (LPA) to empirically identify dual-factor mental health classes at each of Grades 9 through 12 and latent transition analysis (LTA) to examine stability of classes over four academic years. A sample of 875 adolescents from two cohorts reported on their social-emotional strengths and psychological distress. Cross-sectional LPAs for each grade year resulted in four mental health classes: complete mental health, moderately mentally healthy, symptomatic but content, and troubled. An LTA model indicated that the complete mental health class exhibited the most stability, followed by moderately mentally healthy and symptomatic but content classes. The troubled class exhibited the least stability. Less than 24% of participants remained in the same mental health class across all years. Findings support regular monitoring of students' dual-factor mental health to accurately inform mental health promotion, prevention, and intervention efforts.

Disaster exposure can put survivors at greater risk for subsequent mental health (MH) problems. Within the field of disaster MH research, it is important to understand how the choice of analytic approaches and their implicit assumptions may affect results when using a disaster exposure measure. We compared different analytic strategies for quantifying disaster exposure and included a new analytic approach, latent class analysis (LCA), in a sample of parents and youth. Following exposure to multiple floods in Texas, a sample of 555 parents and 486 youth were recruited. Parents were predominantly female (70.9%) and White (60.8%). Parents were asked to have their oldest child between the ages of 10 and 19 years old participate (M = 13.74 years, SD = 2.57; 52.9% male). Participants completed measures on disaster exposure, posttraumatic stress, depression, and anxiety. The LCA revealed four patterns of exposure in both parents and youth: high exposure (15.5% parent, 9.5% child), moderate exposure (19.8% parent, 28.2% child), community exposure (45.9% parent, 34.4% child), and low exposure (18.8% parent, 27.8% child). In terms of MH, there were similarities across analytic approaches, but the LCA highlighted a threshold effect, with the high exposure class doing worse than all others, d = 1.12. These results have important implications in understanding the different exposure experiences of survivors and the linkage to MH outcomes. The findings are also informative in the development and use of screening tools used in postdisaster contexts in determining who may or may not need MH services.

A dearth of literature exists on first-year transfer student interventions, which makes it difficult to determine whether there are transfer student subgroups that struggle more than others. This study used a latent class analysis to examine whether meaningful subgroups of transfer students emerged based on their response patterns to measures of academic and social adjustment. Results identified four subgroups and showed participants in a first-year transfer student course more likely to be report positive adjustment and had the smallest drop in GPA. Furthermore, STEM majors were most likely to belong to the subgroup with lower adjustment. This study is one of the first to use a latent class analysis to identify transfer student subgroups and provide empirical support for first-year transfer student program interventions at a selective research-intensive public university.

There is a growing body of research on the importance of students engaging and learning by interacting with racially/ethnically diverse people, less is known about the effects of student interactions with others across other various aspects of difference (e.g., religion, political beliefs, gender, sexual orientation), and how this may impact on their awareness and understanding of various aspects and issues of difference. We used latent class analysis (LCA) to illustrate how college students can be classified into groups based on their openness to learning from diverse others. The LCA revealed four latent classes: global openness (14%), openness to visible diversity (12%), openness to less visible diversity (8%), and low openness (66%). The findings suggest that approximately two thirds of students perceive their interactions with diverse others as having little to no effect on their understanding of others' perspectives. However, students who were open to some type of diversity (regardless of that diversity) reported an increase in their awareness and understanding of various aspects and issues of difference. We conclude with implications of the findings for institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background/Context: The relationship between perceived discrimination and students' academic outcomes is well established, showing the negative effects of experiences of discrimination. Although much attention has focused on how to temper these effects for students, few studies have focused on the potential role that teachers can play in lessening the effects of discrimination on student outcomes. Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study: In this study, we look at the intersection of race/ethnicity and gender by examining at how Latinx male and female high school students' academic outcomes, such as grade point average, are impacted by their perceived level of discrimination and teacher support. Research Design: Using an intersectional framework, this study uses data from 783 Latinx adolescents (Mage = 16.01 years) in the United States. Specifically, we examine the moderating role of perceived teacher support on the relationship between students' discrimination and their academic performance using a moderated factor analysis approach. Findings/Results: Results indicate that the items that measure perceived discrimination and teacher support do not function in the same way for Latinx male and female adolescents and that emotional teacher support buffers the negative relationship between discrimination and academic performance for Latinx males. Conclusions/Recommendations: We argue the need to construct measures and approach interventions in the areas of discrimination and teacher support that would allow us to better identify how to support Latinx adolescents in the most effective ways.

Research with English monolinguals has identified key subskills of reading comprehension that can differentiate subgroups of readers. There remains a dearth of research examining these subskills in Spanish-speaking bilingual students, and few studies have identified subgroups of readers whose home language is Spanish. This study used latent profile analysis to identify three distinct reader profiles of Spanish-speaking bilingual students based on Spanish and English word reading and vocabulary measures and examined profile differences in Spanish and English reading comprehension. The profiles were primarily distinguished by Spanish measures and were labeled "balanced Spanish and English," "average English/low Spanish expressive Language," and "English dominant." All three profiles scored significantly differently in Spanish reading comprehension. The balanced Spanish and English profile scored higher than the English-dominant profile in English reading comprehension. Implications for research and practice are discussed.

The purpose of this study is to explore the relationship between various protective factors with academic outcomes of Latina/o high school students. We use two groups of protective influences, individual and family, and their relationship to 12th grade mathematics achievement, dropout rates, and enrollment in post-secondary education. Latent class analysis was used to identify academic protective profiles, or latent groups/classes, among high school Latina/o students (N = 1610) and assess group differences with respect to gender, SES, immigrant status, student's native language, preschool attendance, and 10th grade mathematics. Results indicated the presence of four academic protective groups, which differed with respect to academic discussions with parents, and attitudes about mathematics. The four classes are compared with respect to academic outcomes and differences are discussed as well as implications for practice.

Youth gang involvement is a serious public health challenge as adolescents involved in gangs are more likely than others to engage in violence and aggression. To better understand gang involvement, we examined the role of protective (empathy and parental support) and risk (peer deviance and lack of safety at school) factors, as well as their interactions, in predicting adolescent gang affiliation. The study involved a sample of 26,232 students (53.4% females; mean age = 14.62, SD = 1.69) participating in the California Healthy Kids Survey (CHKS), a survey investigating a wide range of youth health and risk behaviors administered in all California schools every 2 years. Using hierarchical linear modeling (HLM), findings indicated that high levels of empathy and parental support were associated with a lower likelihood of affiliating with a gang. Associating with deviant peers and perceiving the school as unsafe were positively correlated with gang membership. At the school level, lack of safety and type of school (special education, vocational, or alternative school vs. comprehensive schools) were associated with greater probability of gang membership. Empathy mitigated the association between deviant peers and gang membership.

This long-term longitudinal study addressed the theoretical underpinning of academic intrinsic motivation (AIM) from childhood through adolescence, to need for cognition (NFC) and educational attainment (EA) during adulthood. AIM was measured from 9 to 17 years old, NFC and EA at 29 years old, and IQ at 8 years old. Latent change and growth mixture modeling were utilized. These models complemented each other, revealing that initial motivational status significantly related to both outcomes. Growth mixture modeling elaborated the findings by identifying distinctive subgroups in initial status and developmental change. In contrast to children with initially higher AIM, those starting lower declined resulting in lower NFC and EA. IQ was controlled in these analyses. Findings enhance understanding of trajectories across two decades of development, indicating that students' early motivation relates to adulthood NFC and EA. Implications for educational practices are discussed.