UC Riverside

Latino adolescents, especially English language learners (ELLs) are considered to be a highly vulnerable group in our schools today. Despite their apparent need for additional social-emotional and academic learning (SEAL) supports, there is very little research to inform the type of cultural modifications (if any) needed to make SEAL interventions more appropriate for this population. Accordingly, this study focused on identifying the effects of acculturative stress (a culturally specific stressor) and general mental health problems on students' academic performance. More specifically, this study aimed to identify which factor (mental health problems or acculturative stress) best explains Latino adolescent ELLs' academic performance. This study defined mental health problems as being comprised of internalizing and externalizing symptoms and acculturative stress as being comprised of perceived discrimination, immigration related stress, parent-child acculturative gap, and school belonging. Hierarchical multiple regression was used to examine the effects of mental health problems and acculturative stress on the academic performance of Latino adolescents. Although both mental health problems and acculturative stress explained significant variance in academic performance, acculturative stress was the stronger contributing variable. Interactions between ELL status and mental health problems and ELL status and acculturative stress were examined to determine whether ELL status influenced the degree to which these two contributing constructs explained academic performance. Non-significant interactions between ELL status and mental health problems and ELL status and acculturative stress suggest that ELL status was not a moderating factor. Although ELL status was not a moderating factor in the relationship between acculturative stress and academic performance, independent sample t-tests suggest that acculturative stress levels were significantly higher for Latino adolescent ELLs than for Latino adolescent non-ELLs. The results of this study suggest that while generic mental health problems are still important to address in SEAL interventions for Latino students, it may be of equal or even more importance to also address acculturative stress. Addressing acculturative stress in SEAL interventions for ELLs has been supported by the results of this study and previous research.