Multiple Disadvantage And Discrimination: Implications For Adolescent Health And Education

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Introduction

The way contemporary societies are structured facilitates the prevalence of discrimination and multiple disadvantages. Adolescents are majorly affected by these practices. These acts make them experience stress. Stress accumulated is directly related to poor health and dwindling in academic performance (Vanhalst et al., 2012). Besides, the disadvantages and discrimination generate biological cascades that may be harmful psychosocial trajectories across development. According to this article, exposure to multiple forms of discrimination and disadvantages carries direct stress effects on adolescents (Assari, Gibbons & Simons, 2018). Also, social stress is manifested when adolescents are made to carry out roles under conditions that are unfavorable. Early life experiences when growing up, roots later health and education disparities. Beside factors such as discrimination, it is becoming increasingly apparent that the social environment shapes youth’s course of well-being (Nurius, Prince & Rocha, 2015). Also, the manner that the multiple disadvantages stack up contribute to their cumulative well-being. Social and material inequalities are the primary sources of marginalization that exert influence on their health and education as life-course trajectories.

I selected to review this article because it had essential insights that focused on obstacles that prevent the youth from developing and prospering. The report analyzes deeply how discrimination experiences and disadvantages affect the health and school grades of the youth. Health deteriorates, and academic performance declines because there is the presence of discriminatory resources in society. Studying factors such as disadvantages and discrimination is vital. This is because they help in the determination of better ways that can be used to mitigate their adverse effects. Reading this article has made me understand that the development of human beings encompasses several factors. Some of these factors, when not handled properly, may create detrimental effects on the lives of the youth in the future.

Research Design Summary

This study is examining how the correlation between multiple disadvantages, discrimination experiences, supportive resources, health, and academic affects the lives of high school seniors. It further highlights the impacts of discrimination and disadvantages on the overall developmental outcome. To find out about all that has been stated above, the study had to use data from different high schools. It focused on senior subjects that were on the verge of transitioning to adulthood (N = 9658). The average age for participating in the exercise was 18 years old. A survey was conducted within two months. Direct consent and surrogate consent had to be obtained since the experiment was dealing with students that were under the age of 18 (Prince, Rocha & Nurius, 2018). With the participation being voluntary, the surveys were self-administered to every senior student that participated. The response rate for completed surveys was 70%. The relatively high number of participants made some students to be deleted from the list since it lacked the element of randomness. The racial and ethnic profiles indicated the following; 1.5% Native Americans, 13.2% Asians, 4.7% Hawaiians, 66.4% Hispanics, and 13.8% African Americans. 54.6% of the participants were female. The research agreements were finalized by cooperating with the terms the schools had. The survey included income as a vital factor. Therefore, they used homeownership as the socioeconomic indicator.

Hypotheses

The research was trying to prove four hypotheses. The first hypothesis was examining discrimination factors in relation to student’s religion, race, gender, and nationality. The second hypothesis tested how multiple disadvantages directly affected physical health and grades of the students that participated. The third hypothesis was trying to find out how experienced discrimination affected the health and academic well-being of the students. The final hypothesis was testing the mitigating effect of family resources on adolescents that had encountered multiple disadvantages and discrimination on their health and education.

Theory

The article used the stress process theory to elaborate more on the disproportionate amount of treatment in disadvantaged groups (Prince, Rocha & Nurius, 2018). The theory explained the role of discrimination in health and education disparities between groups. It incorporated multiple levels of support and discrimination at the individual and community level. The focus of using the theory in the research was to help in the prediction of health and academic outcomes. The environment that the youth are exposed to influences their academic achievement and health outcomes (Assari, Gibbons & Simons, 2018). When adolescents live in high deprivation neighborhoods, then they will have lower knowledge concerning their health, thus having poor health outcomes. Health and educational attainments of the high school seniors that participated in the study varied by their level of socioeconomic status. Therefore, stress process theory suggests that focus on society practices will have a limited effect on the development of the youth. It is vital to incorporate health outcomes and educational attainment to help in the development of mitigation strategies.

Results Description

The study was measuring experienced discrimination and multiple disadvantages. Multiple disadvantages represented several indicators of economic disparities. The multiple disadvantages standard deviation was 1.94. The overall mean for experienced discrimination was 1.76 and a standard deviation of 1.30. The subjects responded with a yes or a no to indicate if they had ever experienced any discrimination. Other aspects that were measured were health, grades, protective assets, peer resources and family resources (Prince, Rocha & Nurius, 2018). The results obtained from these measurements were analyzed using multinomial logistic regression model (Prince, Rocha & Nurius, 2018). Discrimination level was the dependent variable. The independent variable was the indexes derived from the multiple disadvantages. The purpose of conducting the analysis was to find out how discrimination experiences relate to the multiple disadvantage status among the youth. Least square regression analyses were conducted to examine three hypotheses. Descriptive statistics showed that 82% of the senior students reported one and more disadvantages. 57% of the subjects experienced no discrimination and the remaining experienced two to four forms of discrimination. Majority of the students (30%) had excellent health, and there was 1% representation of fair health. The standard deviation for emotional health was 0.43. Most of the subjects reported average grades; Bs and most As. The relative risk ratios (RRRs) increased in students that had more considerable disadvantages. Students who were in the high disadvantage group had a higher relative risk of encountering racial discrimination compared with those from the low disadvantaged groups (Prince, Rocha & Nurius, 2018). The students who were in the middle had a relative risk that was two times higher. Females reported higher emotional health than their counterparts did. However, they had negative reports on their physical health due to discrimination as compared to males. The family resources played a vital role in moderating the effects of discrimination and other multiple disadvantages. The resources improved the health and education outcomes of the senior students.

Conclusion

The article offers insight into how multiple disadvantages and discrimination affects the health and education outcomes of the youth. These factors prevail in the environment. Therefore, it is vital to understand them to come up with resources that will support the development of the youth. The research design used was self-filled surveys. The research wanted to find out the relationship between multiple disadvantages, discrimination experiences, supportive resources, health, and academics on the lives of high school seniors. The researcher came up with four hypotheses that were focusing on peer resources, family resources, health outcomes, discrimination and multiple disadvantages. The article used stress process theory to elaborate more on the disproportionate amount of treatment in disadvantaged groups. The results obtained from the experiment proved that students who were from highly disadvantaged groups had a high-risk ratio of being exposed to racial discrimination. Furthermore, peer and family resources played a significant role in students’ health and education.

I do agree with the conclusion made in this study. The study used the accurate analysis and selected diverse subjects to participate. It provided information on the benefits of mitigating resources on youth’s development. However, the research was cross-sectional and had a higher number of students from African American and immigrant families. In the future, such a study should gather data from different urban centers for broad-based generalizability. Besides, the use of self-administered surveys makes data to be biased. This is because most people do not like to publicize their socio-economic status.

References

Assari, S., Gibbons, F., & Simons, R. (2018). Depression among Black Youth; Interaction of Class and Place. Brain sciences, 8(6), 108.
Nurius, P. S., Prince, D. M., & Rocha, A. (2015). Cumulative disadvantage and youth well-being: A multi-domain examination with life course implications. Child and Adolescent Social Work Journal, 32(6), 567-576.
Prince, D. M., Rocha, A., & Nurius, P. S. (2018). Multiple Disadvantage and Discrimination: Implications for Adolescent Health and Education. Social Work Research, 42(3), 169-179.
Vanhalst, J., Klimstra, T. A., Luyckx, K., Scholte, R. H., Engels, R. C., & Goossens, L. (2012). The interplay of loneliness and depressive symptoms across adolescence: Exploring the role of personality traits. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 41(6), 776-787.

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