Impact of Stress on Later Academic Engagement Among Emergent Bilingual Students: Grit and Academic Support as Protective Factors

Despite evidence that academic engagement is necessary for academic success, limited research exists on the effects of stress on academic engagement for emergent bilingual students. The contribution of this short-term longitudinal study is the identification of individual and environmental socioemotional protective factors which may mitigate the impact of stress on later academic engagement among upper elementary emergent bilingual students at a Title I school ( N = 142; 75% Latinx; 54% female). The present study tested teacher (TR) - and student-reported (SR) grit in addition to student-reported academic support (SR-peer and teacher support) as moderators of the impact of SR-perceived stress on later SR- and TR-academic engagement. Results indicated SR-peer support and SR-grit were significant moderators of the negative impact of stress on later TR-emotional engagement and SR-emotional engagement, respectively, when controlling for earlier engagement. The discussion addresses how schools can support emergent bilinguals’ stress and implement systems-level practices that may mitigate the effects of stress on academic engagement. IMPACT STATEMENT Stress can disrupt student engagement and learning in school. For low-income, emergent bilingual elementary-aged students in the present study, stress had a negative relation with later emotional engagement in school. The negative relation of stress with engagement was mitigated by the protective factor of peer academic support, especially at high levels of stress. Student grit only mitigated the negative effect of stress on engagement at low levels of stress. It may be worth considering the promotion of peer academic support to counteract the negative effects of stress on low-income, emergent bilingual students.