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Updated: Jun 25, 2026

A Modified Trier Social Stress Test for Vulnerable Mexican American Adolescents
Published on: July 10, 2017
A longitudinal study of self-esteem, cultural identity, and academic success among American Indian adolescents
Nancy Rumbaugh Whitesell1, Christina M Mitchell, Paul Spicer
1American Indian and Alaska Native Programs, University of Colorado Denver, Aurora, CO 80045-0508, USA. nancy.whitesell@ucdenver.edu
Abstract:
Latent growth curve modeling was used to estimate developmental trajectories of self-esteem and cultural identity among American Indian high school students and to explore the relationships of these trajectories to personal resources, problem behaviors, and academic performance at the end of high school. The sample included 1,611 participants from the Voices of Indian Teens project, a 3-year longitudinal study of adolescents from 3 diverse American Indian cultural groups in the western United States. Trajectories of self-esteem were clearly related to academic achievement; cultural identity, in contrast, was largely unrelated, with no direct effects and only very small indirect effects. The relationships between self-esteem and success were mediated by personal resources and problem behaviors.
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