The discrepancy between White and minority college enrollment and completion rates appears to be widening in spite of the efforts of many institutions to increase access to higher education and to identify and remove barriers that lead to failure. Our purpose is to study those individuals who do successfully cope with those pressures endemic to college life as well as the additional stresses unique to minorities living in a poor urban area. The research seeks to identify those factors associated with three separate components of stress-resilience (academic achievement, psychological well-being, and physical health) in both minority and majority college students. A prospective, longitudinal design will be used to examine these variables in relation to five sets of predictors: 1) specific life stressors, 2) the subjective appraisal of these stressors, 3) specific coping strategies, 4) internal personality resources, and 5) external social support resources related to both the student's academic and non-academic life. Prior to beginning the longitudinal study, a one-year pilot testing phase of the instrumentation and procedures to be used in the longitudinal study will be carried out. This research will help clarify the inter-relationships among the predictor variables as well as their individual and combined contributions to stress-resilience. The ultimate goal of the research is to obtain a better understanding of factors contributing to stress resilience in a minority population and, most importantly, to the factors related to successful outcomes for minority college students. Such information might suggest new intervention strategies.
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