"We Just Live and Forget": Latino Adolescent Coping with Community Violence Exposure and the Roles of Culture and Parent-Adolescent Relationships.

Abstract

This dissertation relies on a contextual framework of stress and coping to investigate the roles of voluntary and involuntary stress responses in community violence exposure among Latino adolescents. Guided by feminist theories of intersectionality, it specifically highlights the importance of examining cultural values and parent-adolescent relationships in this context. This dissertation uses a mixed-methods approach to explore and contextualize these connections.

The quantitative study uses self-report survey data from 223 Latino 9th graders to explore voluntary and involuntary stress responses in the context of community violence exposure. Findings from this study show that social support seeking and denial, which are volitional coping responses, moderate the relations between personal victimization and depression and PTSD. Moreover, endorsement of traditional gender roles is significantly and positively associated with use of denial coping in Latino adolescents. Cognitive interference, an involuntary stress response, mediated the relation between victimization and depression and PTSD. Parent-adolescent cohesion and cultural family values did not moderate the relation between victimization and involuntary stress responses. This study highlights the importance of understanding the distinct roles which voluntary and involuntary stress responses play in the context of community violence exposure. It also points to the importance of considering gender and beliefs about gender in understanding what aspects of culture influence Latino adolescent coping strategies.

The qualitative study explores these relations by examining interviews with 23 Latino 9th graders. Latino adolescents in this study reported involuntary responses to community violence and 4 voluntary coping strategies. Adolescent-reported parental coping varied in terms of the level of engagement with community violence. There were no differences between adolescent stress responses based on parental coping strategies. Finally, Latino parents played a key role in the socialization of proactive coping strategies among their children. Findings from the qualitative study point to the importance of family and parents in Latino adolescent coping with community violence. In all, this dissertation highlights the importance of examining cultural and familial factors when studying stress responses among Latino youth who are exposed to community violence. In so doing, this study aims to inform future intervention efforts with violence exposed Latino youth.