This study examines school and work barrier beliefs about the limitations of education for future career rewards and perceived supports for attaining the educational and career aspirations of low-income, inner-city, African American, Hispanic/Latino(a), and Caribbean immigrant youth. The authors find that higher levels of school andwork barrier beliefs are associated with lower aspirations, particularly for minority youth who are less recent immigrants. The authors described workshops designed to constructively challenge counterproductive school and work barrier beliefs by expanding participants' learning about accessible sources of support for attaining their school, work, and life goals. Results indicate that participants endorse two types of support sources: contextual supports (relational and community resources accessible in their environments) and personal resources (psychological assets within the individual). The authors propose that personal resources be conceptualized from social learning theory as facilitative task approach skills (e.g., productive work habits, learning-oriented performance expectations, helpful cognitive processes, beneficial problem orientations, self-regulated emotional responses, and other personal assets).

The authors investigated the empirical relationship between K. I. van der Zee and J. P. van Oudenhoven's (2000, 2001) multicultural personality dispositions and C. D. Ryff's (1989b) dimensions of psychological well-being. The present sample included 270 students from one primarily graduate university and one primarily undergraduate university in the northeast region of the United States. Factor analysis indicated that a three-dimensional model of the multicultural personality was the best fit structure for the sample. Correlations between multicultural personality scores and psychological well-being scores were generally positive and in the predicted directions. However, the academic setting of the participants appeared to influence the pattern of relationships. The authors identified the multicultural personality as a promising construct for research across diverse psychology specialties.

No abstract

No abstract