Stress within a bicultural context for adolescents of Mexican descent. Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology

Folkman and Lazarus’s theory of stress and coping was used to develop a measure as-sessing the perceived stress within a bicultural context. Middle school students of Mexi-can descent (N = 881) reported their perceived stress from intergenerational accultura-tion gaps, within-group discrimination, out-group discrimination, and monolingual stress. Although immigrant youths reported more total number of stressors, U.S.-born youths reported more stress from needing better Spanish and impact of parents ’ culture. Immigrant youths reported more stress from needing better English in school. Higher stress was associated with more depressive symptoms for both U.S.-born and immigrant youths. Although this study has identified some elements of stress, it has not identified positive coping mechanisms of the bicultural context for Latino youths. • bicultural • stress • adolescent • Latino Despite the high prevalence of depression in Latino adolescents, we know relatively little about the relation among stress, cop-ing, and depressive symptoms in this popu