Teen Dating Violence Victimization and Dropout Among African Americans and Latinos

Background: TDV negatively impacts the health and mental health of youth in the United States. However, little research has examined whether the TDV victimization is related to educational outcomes, and what mechanism explains such relationship. This study examines the mediating effects of depression on the relationship between TDV and risk of high school dropout among African Americans and Latinos.

Methods: The data used in the current study came from Wave 10 of the longitudinal Schools and Families Educating (SAFE) Children study conducted in Chicago between 1997-2008. The sample included African American (n=128) and Latino (n=138) high school students. Risk of dropout was measured using the sum scores of attitudes towards school subscale from the Behavior Assessment System for Children. TDV victimization was measured using a scale that lists examples of psychologically and physically abusive behaviors and asks how many times they occurred. Sum scores were calculated for final analysis for physical and psychological TDV respectively. Depressive symptoms were measured using the Center for Epidemiologic Studies - Depression Scale. Race, gender, age, and financial strain were controlled. Race was recoded into dummy variables (1= Black/African American, 0= Latino). Financial strain was measured by the question ‘How many times have your received public aid?’ (0=Never, 1= At least once in lifetime).  Process macro for SPSS v.2.16 was used to conduct the multiple regression analysis.

Results: For the total sample, physical TDV was associated with depression (b =.34, p =.004), and depression was associated with risk of drop out (b=0.02, p< .001).  After considering the impact of depression, the direct relationship of physical IPV on risk of school dropout (b=.02, p=.04) became insignificant indicating a complete mediation (b = .008, p = .30). Psychological TDV was associated with depression (b=.49, p=.001), and depression was associated with risk of dropout (b=.02, p=.003). After examining the impact of depression, the direct relationship of psychological TDV and risk of school dropout (b=.03, p=.003) became insignificant indicating complete mediation (b=.02, p=.06). The Sobel test also showed the significant mediation role of depression for associations between physical (z=2.61, p=.009) or psychological (z=3.00, p=.003) TDV and dropout rates. Similar approached were also conducted among African Americans and Latinos separately. For African Americans, the results showed that depression completely mediated the association between psychological TDV (z=2.06, p=.04,) and dropout rates. Among Latinos, depression partially mediated the relationship between physical TDV and risk of dropout (z=1.95, p=.05), whereas depression mediated the relationship completely (z=1.97, p=.05).

Conclusion/Implications:  Findings indicate that depression acts as a mechanism that explains the relationship between TDV and dropout in both African Americans and Latinos. Depression resulting from TDV victimization may contribute to decreased school attendance and declining academic achievement that may lead to high school dropout. Direct practice social workers should consider assessing for depression and risk for dropout when working with students who experience TDV in addition to safety. Future research should examine effects academic trajectory of students experiencing TDV victimization and depression.