The confluence of developmental assets, ethnic identity, and acculturative stress on thriving of a predominately Hispanic adolescent population

The purpose of this dissertation was to examine the confluence of ethnic identity, acculturative stress, and developmental assets on thriving among predominately Hispanic adolescent population. This research explored how varying levels of ethnic identity, acculturative stress, and developmental assets contributed to thriving. Thriving is a developmental concept that requires a young person to not only appear to be doing well in the present, but to also be on the pathway to a hopeful future. Thriving also consists of making important contributions to ones' own live, as well as to ones' family and community (Lerner, Dowling, & Anderson, 2003) One hundred and eighty-seven adolescents participated in this study. Each study participant completed a battery of measures of developmental assets, ethnic identity, acculturative stress, and thriving. Results were explored using a variety of multivariate and univariate statistical approaches across all variables as well as compared by levels of ethnic identity and acculturative stress. The correlations between the developmental asset scores (context and category), ethnic identity, and composite thriving were all significant and positive.;Implications for counselors and other professionals are discussed. Implications include integrating such knowledge into educational programming, raising awareness of cultural issues and areas where developmental assets are scarce, and practicing and integrating skills related to adolescents' ethnic identity development, lack of developmental assets, and if present stress associated with acculturation process that ethnic minority adolescent populations may be experiencing.;Results of this study were consistent with previous findings in the literature that suggest that the more developmental assets an adolescent possesses the more likely they are to thrive and avoid risk behaviors. For this group of adolescents, there were significant correlations between developmental assets, ethnic identity, and acculturative stress. The findings suggest that adolescents with strong ethnic identity despite acculturative stress levels have more developmental assets and higher levels of thriving. Whereas adolescents who experience high levels of acculturative stress and low ethnic identity have fewer assets and lower levels of thriving.