The current study uses Garcia Coll et al.'s (1996) developmental competence model of ethnic minority children and Kim's (1999) Racial Triangulation Theory as frameworks for investigating the mechanisms whereby early adolescent English proficiency relates to perceived discriminatory experiences and adolescent depressive symptoms. Data from 444 adolescents (239 girls and 205 boys, with a mean age of 13.0 for Wave 1 and 17.0 for Wave 2) and their parents living in major metropolitan areas of Northern California were collected. The structural equation modeling analyses indicate that self-reported low levels of English proficiency among Chinese American adolescents in middle school are related to these same students later reporting that they speak English with an accent in high school, which in turn relates significantly to their perceiving that they have been stereotyped as perpetual foreigners. For girls, a perpetual foreigner stereotype relates to perceptions of chronic daily discrimination, increasing the risk of depressive symptoms. For boys, the path is different: a perpetual foreigner stereotype is apparently related to discriminatory victimization experiences, which increase the risk of depressive symptoms.

Neighborhood conditions are related to children's externalizing behavior, although few processes that help explain this association have been identified. With data from 189 primarily low-income Anglo and Mexican American families, we tested a stress process model that included 3 potential mediators of this relationship. The results showed that child stressful life events, association with deviant peers, and parent-child conflict mediated the relationship between neighborhood context and child externalizing behavior when household income and maternal depression were controlled. The model explained more than 25% of the variance in externalizing behavior. Furthermore, differences in results for families with a U.S.-born versus Mexico-born mother showed that neighborhood influences on families and children may be quite complex.Child and adolescent conduct problems, including aggression and delinquency, are a serious mental health concern in the United States (Gacono, Nieberding, Owen, Rubel, & Bodholdt, 2001). In community samples, between 6% and 16% of boys and between 2% and 9% of girls under the age of 18 have been diagnosed as having clinical levels of externalizing behavior or conduct problems (American Psychiatric

The objective of the current study was to examine the relationships among neighborhood disadvantage, perceived neighborhood quality, family processes, and child internalizing problems within the framework of social disorganization theory. The sample consisted of 189 low-income, European American and Mexican American children and their mothers. The data analyses partially supported our hypotheses that mothers' perceptions of neighborhoods mediated the relation of neighborhood disadvantage to family processes, which in turn were associated with child internalizing problems. The value of contextual factors and social disorganization theory in studying the development of child adjustment problems was supported by the current study. Research issues and practical implications were discussed.The relatively high concentration of child externalizing or delinquent problems in disadvantaged neighborhoods has been widely explained as resulting, at least in part, from negative influences of social disorganization at the neighborhood level on family processes (e.g.

Most family scholars take the concept of poverty for granted. The variety of ways people have chosen to define and measure this concept, however, often makes it difficult to interpret or compare research results. We review and critique the ways that poverty has been measured in the family and child literatures as well as the measures that have been used to help understand variations in adaptation among those in poverty. In addition to reviewing more common measures, we include discussions of two new measures that have the potential to contribute to the literature on poverty: basic family budgets and social exclusion.

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationships among Chinese American adolescents' discrimination experiences, cultural orientations, and delinquent behaviors. Data were collected from three hundred and eleven Chinese American adolescents (58% girls) and their parents when the adolescents were 7th or 8th graders and again 4 years later. The data analyses demonstrated that adolescents' perceptions of discrimination and victimization experiences were significantly related to their delinquent behaviors conditionally based upon their cultural orientation. Specifically, adolescents' high Chinese cultural orientation amplified the negative impact of discriminatory experiences on delinquent behaviors whereas high Western cultural orientation protected them against that impact. The significance of both ethnic and mainstream cultural orientations for understanding ethnic minority adolescents' adjustment and improving their adjustment outcomes is discussed.