Culture and Social Outcomes among Inner-City African American Children: An Afrographic Exploration

Self Cite

This study explores the influences of communal values, empathy, violence avoidance self-efficacy beliefs, and classmate's fighting on violent behaviors among urban African American preadolescent boys and girls. As part of a larger intervention study, 644 low-income 5th grade students from 12 schools completed a baseline assessment that included the target constructs. Boys reported more violent behaviors, and lower levels of empathy and violence avoidance self-efficacy beliefs than girls. Path analyses revealed that, after controlling for the positive contributions of classmate's fighting, violence avoidance self-efficacy beliefs were a negative predictor of violent behavior. Communal values had a direct negative relationship with violence for boys, but not girls. Both communal values and empathy were associated with less violent behavior through positive relationships with violence avoidance self-efficacy beliefs. For girls, classmate fighting had an indirect positive association with violent behavior through its negative relationship with violence avoidance self-efficacy beliefs. Findings are discussed in terms of implications of basic and applied research on violence among African American youth.

Section: Protective Factors Against Violence Involvement: Toward a Cusupporting

confidence: 57%

Section: Protective Factors Against Violence Involvement: Toward a Cumentioning

confidence: 99%

Protective Factors Associated with Preadolescent Violence: Preliminary Work on a Cultural Model

Jagers

Sydnor

Mouttapa

et al. 2007

Self Cite

“…Communalism is inversely associated with violent behavior among African-American boys (Jagers et al, 2007) and with the use of externalizing coping strategies, which are thought to be driven by emotion or anger, among African-American adolescents (Scott, 2003). More generally, acceptance of Afrocentric values is related to lower levels of delinquency (Jagers & Mock, 1993). Given that communalism emphasizes connection to others as well as the needs of the group over individual needs, communalism may help to promote thriving.…”

Section: Communalismmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Teaching the ways in which God plays a supportive role in adolescents' lives may also help to support the development of thriving among religiously involved African-American youth. The significant role of communalism in relation to thriving and faith supports the importance of creating a sense of interdependence and responsibility for friends and family (Jagers & Mock, 1993;Woods & Jagers, 2003) as well as conveying traditional African values (Banks, Hogue, Timberlake & Liddle, 1997). A note of caution: at least two studies have found an inverse relationship between religious involvement and GPA (grade point average) among urban youth (Pedersen et al, 2005;Schwarz, Cappella, & Seidman, 2015).…”

Section: Practicementioning

confidence: 99%

Thriving Among African‐American Adolescents: Religiosity, Religious Support, and Communalism

Gooden

McMahon

2016

While research has identified some positive factors in the lives of African-American adolescents, there is limited, yet growing, empirical research examining how positive factors foster thriving for these youth. Using a positive youth development framework, we examined naturally occurring factors that promote thriving among African-American adolescents. This cross-sectional study included 152 youth who were surveyed at five Black churches in a large Midwestern city. Using MPlus, the structural regression model results revealed support for a model that demonstrated religiosity, religious support, and communalism are significantly and directly related to thriving among African-American adolescents. Implications for theory, research and practice are discussed. Moving from a deficit lens to a strengths-based approach can facilitate understanding of developmental processes and provide a foundation for supporting and enhancing positive outcomes among African-American adolescents.

“…A few studies of race-differences in aggressive behavior provide limited evidence that African American youth, especially males, may differ from other groups of youth in aggressive responses to everyday social encounters (Yager & RotheramBorus, 2000). There is no evidence, however, that problem behavior among youth is related to simply being African American (Jagers, 1997;Jagers & Mock, 1993;Spencer & Depree, 1996). As the Surgeon General (USDHHS, 2001) asserts, risk markers such as race or ethnicity are frequently used as risk factors for violence, yet being African American has no causal relationship to violence.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Racial Discrimination and Racial Identity as Risk or Protective Factors for Violent Behaviors in African American Young Adults

Caldwell

Kohn-Wood

Schmeelk-Cone

et al. 2004

269

223

This study examined the influences of racial discrimination and different racial identity attitudes on engaging in violent behavior among 325 African American young adults. The contributions of racial discrimination and racial identity attitudes in explaining violent behavior during the transition into young adulthood while controlling for the influences of prior risk behaviors at ninth grade were examined separately for males and females. In addition, the buffering effects of racial identity attitudes on the relationship between racial discrimination and violent behavior were tested. Results indicated that experience with racial discrimination was a strong predictor of violent behavior, regardless of gender. The centrality of race for males and the meaning others attribute to being Black for both males and females were moderators of the influence of racial discrimination on violent behavior. KEY WORDS:African American adolescents; racial discrimination; gender differences; protective factors; racial identity; violence.Most studies find that about 30-40% of male and 15-30% of female youths report having committed violent acts by age 17 (USDHHS, 2001). Extensive evidence has accumulated on the effects of specific psychosocial and environmental risk factors for the perpetration of violent behaviors. Youth violence in the United States has been associated consistently with aggressiveness, antisocial behavior, and poverty during childhood, substance use, antisocial peer groups, parent disciplinary practices, parents with favorable attitudes toward violence, family functioning, academic failure, and being male (Blaske, Borduin, Henggeler, & Mann, 1989;Farrington & Loeber, 2000;Florsheim, Tolan, & Gorman-Smith, 1996;Gorman-Smith, Tolan, Zelli, & Huesmann, 1996;Gorman-Smith, Tolan, Loeber, & Henry, 1998;Guerra, Husemann, Tolan, Van Acker, & Eron, 1995; Hawkins et al., 2000;Henggeler, 1989; Henry, Tolan, & Gorman-Smith, 2001;Kosterman et al., 2001;Loeber & Stouthamer-Loeber, 1998; Tolan & Lorion, 1988;USDHHS, 2001). Yet, the majority of youth at risk for committing violent acts do not engage in violent behaviors (Zimmerman, Steinman, & Rowe, 1998).The Surgeon General's (USDHHS, 2001) recent report on youth violence concludes that risk factors do not operate in isolation and that they can be buffered by protective factors. Several individual characteristics (e.g., self-concept, intolerant attitude toward deviance, commitment to school) and environmental conditions (e.g., supportive family and school environments, resource rich neighborhoods) have been proposed to be protective against youth violence (Hawkins et al., 1998;Kosterman et al., 2001; Caldwell, Kohn-Wood, Schmeelk-Cone, Chavous, and Zimmerman Paschall & Hubbard, 1998;Resnick et al., 1997). This suggests the importance of an ecological framework in explaining these behaviors. The ecological model posits that youth violence is a function of individual psychosocial characteristics, social influences, and societal constraints (Guerra et al. 1995;Paschall & Hubb...