Trait Emotional Intelligence, Perceived Discrimination, and Academic Achievement among African American and Latina/o High School Students: A Study of Academic Resilience

The goal of academic resilience research is to identify factors and processes which lead to academic success among groups of students generally found to be at-risk, including those of African American and Latina/o descent. The present study investigated a possible risk factor (perceptions of discrimination), a possible protective factor (emotional intelligence), and the role of gender in predicting academic achievement (as measured by high school GPA) in a sample (N = 79) of African American and Latina/o high school students attending one high school in Minnesota. Through the use of multiple regression, neither emotional intelligence nor perceptions of discrimination was found to be a statistically significant predictor of GPA among the entire sample, although when each gender was considered separately, a significant model for predicting GPA among males did emerge. In addition to these findings and a subsequent discussion, the literature related to academic resilience and the independent variables is presented within, along with implications for educators and recommendations for future research.