The role of resource, protective, and risk factors on academic achievement‐related outcomes of economically disadvantaged Latino youth

We examined the effects of cumulative risk, resource, and protective factors on the language and math achievement scores and school problem behaviors of a sample of 549 10–14‐year‐old, economically disadvantaged Latino youths. Findings indicated that as the number of risk factors increased, youth's language and math achievement scores decreased and school problem behaviors increased. Hierarchical regression analyses revealed that each of the hypothesized resource variables (i.e., maternal monitoring, maternal academic involvement, socioemotional competence, and extracurricular activity) made a unique contribution to at least one achievement‐related outcome, over and above the effects of cumulative risk. Moreover, maternal monitoring buffered the effects of multiple risk factors on language achievement scores. Contrary to expectations, higher levels of participation in extracurricular activities had a detrimental effect on male school problem behavior scores and was unrelated to girl's problem behavior scores.