Experienced, Anticipated, and Vicarious Discrimination: Consequences and Resilience for Minority Adolescents’ School Engagement

Abstract

Racial discrimination presents challenges for children of color, particularly with regard to their schooling. Experiences of rejection and unfairness because of one’s race can prompt students to disengage from academics. The expansive discrimination literature finds that such experiences are commonplace. So much so that researchers have begun asking a new question: does one need to experience discrimination first-hand to feel its consequences? The current study continues in this direction by examining school attitudes as a potential outcome of anticipated and vicarious discrimination. Data are from black and Hispanic adolescents in the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods. Results indicate that anticipated discrimination has the strongest and most direct associations with attitudes among African Americans, particularly when the police represent the discrimination source. However, parents can neutralize the impact of anticipated discrimination if they encourage reading at high levels. Experienced and vicarious discrimination exhibit weaker effects. Overall, the results confirm that the consequences of interpersonal discrimination do not stop with the intended victims. Instead, there are ripple effects that can negatively impact the worldviews of racial minority adolescents without them ever personally experiencing discrimination.