Puerto Rican Adolescents
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The recent spate of school shootings underscores the fact that many adolescents in the U.S. are at risk for psychological distress, and that many of the most disturbed youth do not receive appropriate mental health services. For adolescents in general, the statistics and trends pointing to the unhealthy psychological state of modern youth are not cheerful, “Antisocial and disruptive behavior have increasing stability with age, thus underscoring the more intractable quality of dysfunctional behavior as youth age. While psychiatric inpatient admissions for other age groups have declined, adolescent inpatient admissions to psychiatric facilities have increased. The Federal Bureau of Investigation tallies show that 1.75 million juveniles under age 18 were arrested in 1990” (Crespi, 1995, p. 735). Adding to these statistics, child abuse levels are on the rise and these facts combined with the developmental challenges of adolescence have important ramifications for counselors who work with adolescents.When it comes to minority adolescents, the challenges for counselors are increased because of different cultural, socio-economic and other factors that present special obstacles within the client-counselor relationship. The Hispanic minority is expected to be the largest minority percentage-wise in the U.S. sometime early in the 21st century. The literature illustrates that Hispanic youth are even more at-risk for del
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of Puerto Rican adolescent counseling must focus on race and ethnic differences while recognizing the importance of both family processes and cultural perceptions. There may be common variables that place Puerto Rican adolescents and adolescents of other cultures at-risk for delinquent behavior and drug use, but there are dramatic differences when it comes to educational attainment. As of 1991, “only 61% of Hispanics 20 to 21 years old had completed high school compared with 81% of non-Hispanic blacks and 90% of whites” (Wojtkiewicz, and Donato, 1995, p. 559). Since lack of education often creates economic disadvantage, it is related to the at-risk factors for adolescent delinquent behavior and drug use. Some predictors of low educational attainment are more specific to Hispanic minorities than other minorities in the U.S., including living in single-parent homes, low family income, high levels of siblings, foreign birth, non-English language background, and limited socialization. The educational attainment of Puerto Rican adolescents parents is also lower on average than other minority groups. In fact, U.S.-born Puerto Ricans are shown to be at more of a disadvantage in many areas associated as risk elements for delinquent b
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 3107
Approximate Pages = 12 (250 words per page)
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