School-based racial microaggressions: A barrier to resilience among African American adolescents exposed to trauma.

OBJECTIVE

African American adolescents experience disproportionate rates of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), which heightens their risk for negative social, behavioral, and health outcomes. Schools may be a source of support for adolescents exposed to ACEs; however, for many African American adolescents, schools are a source of additional stress due to experiences of racial/ethnic microaggressions. The current study examined the relationship between ACEs, school-based racial/ethnic microaggressions, and resilience after violence exposure in African American adolescents.

METHOD

Participants included 189 African American adolescents with an average age of 15.15 (SD = 1.27, range = 13-18). Fifty-one percent identified as female. Participants reported an average ACE score of 5.81 (SD = 3.63). Moderation analyses were conducted using the three subscales of the School-based Racial and Ethnic Microaggression Scale (academic inferiority, expectations of aggression, and stereotypical misrepresentations; Keels et al., 2017).

RESULTS

ACEs were negatively related to resilience after violence exposure in all three microaggression models. The microaggressions subscales academic inferiority (b = -.05, t(183) = -2.05, p = .04) and stereotypical misrepresentations (b = -.08, t(183) = -2.04, p = .04) significantly moderated the relationship between ACEs and resilience after violence exposure, such that the inverse relationship between these two variables was stronger at higher levels of endorsed microaggressive experiences measured with these two subscales. The moderation model was not significant for the expectations of aggression subscale.

CONCLUSIONS

Findings suggest that school-based racial/ethnic microaggressions negatively impact resilience after violence exposure among African American adolescents exposed to multiple ACEs. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).