Peer-reviewed article
Latinx adolescent parents' experiences with stigma and their school-related outcomes: Examining the moderating effects of social support and ethnic-racial identity.
Walker KJ, Perez-Brena NJ, Duncan JC, Perez R ·
Summary
Written by AI, not yet AICS's view · claude-haiku-4-5-20251001This study examined how stigma affects school outcomes for Latinx adolescent parents, and whether social support and ethnic-racial identity protect them from negative effects. The researchers surveyed 377 adolescent parents (mostly girls) about their experiences of stigma, school belonging, and academic expectations. Ethnic-racial identity was found to buffer the harmful effects of stigma on school belonging, but the relationship with academic expectations was more complex and varied.
Key points
- Adolescent parents experience stigma due to their parenting status, which negatively affects school-related outcomes
- Ethnic-racial identity (ERI) moderated the negative effect of stigma on students' school belonging
- High levels of ERI buffered the negative effect of stigma on school belonging
- Social support did not moderate the relationship between stigma and school outcomes in this study
- The effect of stigma on academic expectations was only significant when ERI was high, suggesting a complex relationship
Limitations
This is a cross-sectional study, so causality cannot be determined and temporal ordering is unknown. The sample includes only Latinx adolescent parents in what appears to be a U.S. context, so findings may not generalise to other ethnic groups, regions, or non-parenting adolescents.
Abstract
Adolescent parents are at risk for poorer school-related outcomes relative to their non-parenting peers. In part, poorer academic outcomes may reflect adolescents' need to balance multiple roles within systems that are unaccommodating to their unique needs. Concomitantly, adolescent parents hold cultural and familial assets that can help them achieve positive school-related outcomes (i.e., school belonging, aspirations, and expectations) despite experiences of marginalization. The current study explores the relationship between adolescent parents' reports of stigma (e.g., negative treatment due to their parenting status) and their school-related outcomes; it will also test whether social support and ethnic-racial identity (ERI) serve as protective factors in these associations. To address our study goals, we employed cross-sectional data from a sample of adolescents who were parents or expecting a child (Mage = 16.87, SD = 1.30; n = 303 girls; n = 74 boys). Our results revealed that ERI, but not social support, moderated the negative effect of stigma on students' school belonging and academic expectations. High levels of ERI buffered the negative effect of stigma on students' reports of school belonging. However, the negative effect of stigma on students' academic expectations was only significant in the context of high ERI. Results highlight the importance of addressing adolescent parent stigma in schools while also demonstrating that ERI may have a differential effect on diverse academic outcomes.