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Culturally relevant practices are valuable assets for ethnically-racially diverse schools, but few studies examine whether such practices promote students' engagement in school longitudinally and whether ethnicity-race moderates the effects of such practices on students' engagement. To address this gap, the present study examined whether schools that acknowledge and promote positive messages about youth's ethnicity-race (i.e., school cultural socialization practices) promoted multiple dimensions of students' school engagement and whether these links differed between African American and European American students. Data were collected in four waves during a two-year period from 403 fifth graders (55.1% males; 63% African American, 37% European American). The results revealed that African American youth who perceived more school cultural socialization reported greater behavioral and affective engagement (but not cognitive engagement) six months later. European Americans' perceived school cultural socialization was unrelated to their levels of engagement in later months. Across groups, neither type of engagement predicted subsequent school cultural socialization, supporting the direction of effects in the results. Implications are discussed regarding how educators can leverage cultural socialization to promote school engagement among African American youth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Socially anxious youth are at an increased risk for academic underachievement, withdrawal from school, and negative peer relationships. Given that learning tasks in science classes rely heavily on peer collaboration and social skills, this study aimed to investigate the link between high-school adolescents' social anxiety and their science achievement while also determining whether and how peer social support and social engagement mediated the relation. Data was collected from 805 high-school students (48.7% female; 30.9% in 9th, 24.0% in 10th, 25.3% in 11th, 19.8% in 12th grade; 51.2% White, 29.8% Black, 11.4% Biracial, 7.6% Other). The results showed that socially anxious adolescents were more likely to report lower social engagement, which in turn predicted lower science performance. In addition, adolescents with social anxiety tended to experience less peer social support, which led to lower social engagement and subsequent lower science performance. These findings have important implications for guiding teaching practice and school-based interventions that support socially anxious adolescents in learning tasks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite growing evidence that racial-ethnic discrimination has a critical impact on college students of color, there is a shortage of longitudinal studies investigating such discrimination across the course of students' college careers. The present study examined trajectories of professor- and peer-perpetrated ethnic-racial discrimination across the first three years in college and the correlations between these trajectories and academic, psychological, and physical adjustment outcomes during students' fourth year in a sample of 770 Black, 835 Asian American, and 742 Latino college students (total n = 2347; 60.1% female) at elite colleges and universities in the United States. Latent growth modeling revealed stability in reported peer discrimination over the first three years of college and an increase in reported discrimination from professors. Discrimination from peers and professors equally predicted unfavorable grades, a lower likelihood of on-time graduation, and less school satisfaction. Perceived discrimination from peers (but not from professors) during students' first year predicted higher rates of depressive symptoms and more health problems in their fourth year. Although initial levels and trajectories of discrimination varied as a function of students' ethnicity-race, the correlates between discrimination and adjustment outcomes did not vary between ethnic-racial groups. The present findings suggest that ethnic-racial discrimination is a complex, ecologically-based stressor that presents a constellation of challenges for students of color attending elite colleges and universities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]