Experiences of Discrimination Among Chinese American Adolescents and the Consequences for Socioemotional and Academic Development

This longitudinal study examined the influences of discrimination on socioemotional adjustment and academic performance for a sample of 444 Chinese American adolescents. Using autoregressive and cross-lagged techniques, the authors found that discrimination in early adolescence predicted depressive symptoms, alienation, school engagement, and grades in middle adolescence but that early socioemotional adjustment and academic performance did not predict later experiences of discrimination. Further, their investigation of whether earlier or contemporaneous experiences of discrimination influenced developmental outcomes in middle adolescence indicated differential effects, with contemporaneous experiences of discrimination affecting socioemotional adjustment, whereas earlier discrimination was more influential for academic performance. Finally, they found a persistent negative effect of acculturation on the link between discrimination and adolescents' developmental outcomes, such that those adolescents who were more acculturated (in this case, higher in American orientation) experienced more deleterious effects of discrimination on both socioemotional and academic outcomes.