Racial and ethnic discrimination is a prevalent issue in the United States, with 63% of minorities reporting experiencing discrimination. Few studies have examined psychopathology as transdiagnostic dimensional factors when investigating its association with discrimination and racial/ethnic identification. Also, little research has established measurement invariance prior to making comparisons across race/ethnicity. To address these shortcomings, the current study (1) assessed for measurement invariance to ensure that observed differences reflected true differences in the latent factors and (2) examined how internalizing (INT) and externalizing (EXT) psychopathology are associated with experiences of discrimination, responses to discrimination, and racial/ethnic identification across White, Black, American Indian/Alaska Native, Asian/Native Hawaiian/Other Pacific Islander, and Hispanic groups using the NESARC-III (n = 36,309). Findings from multiple-group confirmatory factor analysis showed evidence for strong measurement invariance for all latent factors across race/ethnicity. Results from multiple-group structural equation modeling showed that discrimination experiences were associated with higher INT and EXT across all race/ethnic groups. Active responses to discrimination and racial/ethnic identification showed differential effects on psychopathology across groups, providing implications for coping strategies amidst systemic racism and underscoring the importance of recognizing heterogeneity across diverse groups. This study contributes to understanding mental health disparities and emphasizes the need for culturally competent and nuanced interventions in addressing discrimination-related psychopathology across racial/ethnic groups.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-28T20:56:24Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Cristina Teodoro Trinidad.pdf: 10137598 bytes, checksum: ebf7f617d934cd5eb2918d6ad1300b2c (MD5) Previous issue date: 2011-06-03 / Fundação Ford / This study aimed to determine: a) if - and how - children in preschool understand racial- ethnic identification; b) the criteria they employ to do so; and c) the means by which this identification is formulated. The research was conducted in an elementary school, situated in the west part of the city of São Paulo, SP, Brazil, involving 33 children between 4 and 5 years old. The theoretical framework includes approaches to the ethnic-racial identification, specifically those that consider race as a social construction. Furthermore, some categories of the socio-historical theory in Psychology, in particular, the appropriation of 'senses and meanings' were employed. Finally, it was adopted the notion of child proposed by Sociology of Childhood, which sees children as a legitimate social actor, one who produces symbols, representations and beliefs that contribute to their own cultures. The literature review was mainly from North-America, since in Brazil, there are few studies dealing with ethnic and/or racial identification made by children or adolescents. Methodologically, an ethnographic approach was employed in this study, using the following procedures for data collection: participant observations, informal conversations, children s storytelling and document analysis. The results show that young children know and employ racial-ethnic categories while playing or interacting with their peers, but do not select their friends based on their skin color. Nevertheless, they do verbalize a desire to have characteristics not associated with blacks, hair and skin tone being those most frequently mentioned. Apparently, all this indicates that meanings socially constructed, for both whites and blacks, have been appropriate by those children, being especially difficult to handle for those of interracial relationships. In fact, as the similarity to black people increases, the desire of being white intensifies. Finally, it is important to mention that the male and female roles have also been duly appropriated and are reproduced by girls and boy in their everyday life. This situation reveals the urgency of breaking the tendency to reproduce and perpetuate gender discriminations present in society. Lastly, the e results show that adults working at the elementary school as well as the children's own parents do not consider that to answer questions regarding color or race can be of any use, demonstrating a lack of knowledge about the importance of educating children to recognize ethnic and racial diversity as something to be respected and positively valued / Este trabalho teve como objetivo verificar: 1) se e como as crianças em idade pré-escolar compreendem a identificação étnico-racial; 2) os critérios que empregam para tal; e 3) a forma por meio da qual essa identificação é explicitada. A pesquisa foi realizada em uma escola de educação infantil situada na zona oeste da cidade de São Paulo (SP-Brasil) e contou com o envolvimento de 33 crianças entre quatro e cinco anos de idade. O referencial teórico foi constituído com base em três abordagens: 1) as teorias acerca da identificação étnico-racial, em especial aquelas que consideram a raça uma construção social; a proposta sócio-histórica da Psicologia, com particular atenção às categorias sentido e significado ; e 3) a concepção proposta pela Sociologia da Infância, segundo a qual a criança é um ator social legítimo e de direito, que produz símbolos, representações e crenças que contribuem para suas próprias culturas. A revisão da literatura centrou-se, sobretudo, em autores norte-americanos, tendo em vista que, no Brasil, poucos são os estudos que tratam da identificação étnico-racial de crianças e adolescentes. Em termos metodológicos, optou-se pela abordagem etnográfica, e a coleta de dados pautou-se pelos seguintes procedimentos: observações participantes, conversas informais, contação de histórias pelas crianças e análise documental. Os resultados mostraram que crianças de pouca idade conhecem e empregam as categorias étnico-raciais; em suas brincadeiras e interações, não selecionam seus pares tendo como base a cor da pele; verbalizam, no entanto, o desejo de ter características associadas ao grupo de pessoas brancas, sendo o cabelo e a tonalidade da pele as mais mencionadas. Tudo isso aponta para o fato de que os sentidos e os significados dados a brancos e negros já foram apropriados pelas crianças. Em relação aos filhos de relacionamentos inter-raciais, notou-se que, quanto mais as crianças apresentam traços físicos que se aproximam dos atribuídos às pessoas negras, maior é o desejo de serem brancas. Os papéis sociais masculinos e femininos também foram devidamente apropriados e reproduzidos no cotidiano infantil, apontando ser necessário romper com a tendência de reproduzir e perpetuar a discriminação de gênero presente na sociedade. Averiguou-se, também, que a instituição de educação infantil e as famílias das crianças não consideram o preenchimento do quesito cor/raça (seja no Censo da População ou no Censo Escolar) necessário ou relevante, explicitando que desconhecem a importância de educar as crianças pequenas para reconhecerem a diversidade étnico-racial como algo a ser respeitado e positivamente valorizado