Building Resilience among Racial/Ethnic Minority Adolescents: Exploring the Role of Parental Microprotections in Fostering Positive Youth Development

Racial and ethnic minority adolescents experience pervasive discrimination at school including unfair treatment and harsh discipline from teachers. Discrimination is a risk factor that can thwart healthy development. Guided by models of resilience, the present study tested parental microprotections as compensatory and protective factor processes that facilitate positive youth development. Survey data from 270 parent-adolescent dyads (44% Black/African American, 40% Hispanic/Latinx, and 8.5% multiracial/multiethnic) in the United States were analyzed using regression models. Positive youth development was indexed with two scales that tapped positive identity (feeling positive about oneself and the future) and positive values/decision-making (respecting others, following rules, considering consequences of decisions). Results showed that discrimination from teachers was associated with less positive identity and lower levels of positive values/decision-making. However, parental microprotections operated as promotive and protective factors facilitating positive youth development. Specifically, parental microprotections from mothers operated as promotive factors by enhancing positive youth development and microprotections from fathers operated as a protective factor by mitigating the negative effects of discrimination on adolescents’ positive values/decision-making. These results underscore the important role that parents play in supporting racial/ethnic minority adolescents to develop a positive view of themselves, to feel optimistic about their futures, acquire positive values and obtain good decision-making skills. Discrimination from teachers thwarted racial/ethnic minority adolescents’ positive youth development in the domains of identity and values/decision-making. Parental microprotections operated as promotive and protective factors that facilitated positive youth development despite discrimination. Parents play a key role in helping youth of color to develop positive views of themselves, feel optimistic about their futures, and acquire positive values/decision-making skills.