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Despite the deleterious mental health and health consequences experiences of perceived discrimination can have on ethnic and racial minorities in the U.S., a dearth of qualitative studies exist to develop a better understanding of such experiences. As part of a larger study examining psychosocial stress events, and in an effort to fill this gap, this study sought to explore stressful life experiences of intergroup and within-group perceived discrimination among a heterogeneous sample of U.S. born and foreign born Latino youth (n=170) residing in Los Angeles, California and Trenton, New Jersey. Focus group methodology was implemented and data were analyzed using Grounded Theory and constant comparison method. Findings suggest Latino youths� experiences of intergroup and within-group discrimination vary by nativity status and region of the U.S. Findings may be helpful for researchers, practitioners and others working with Latino youth.

Mentoring Programs hold great promise for fostering competency in disadvantaged youth. Although considerable theoretical work has been conducted to explain the role of mentoring relationships in promoting positive youth outcomes, very little empirical research has directly investigated this alliance. The present study developed and validated a tool to assess mentees perception of their relationships with their mentors and to investigate the relationship between this alliance and youth competency.

Central to the development of culturally competent violence prevention programs for Hispanic youth is the development of psychometrically sound violence risk and outcome measures for this population. Research and evaluation studies are dependent on such tools. A study was conducted to determine the psychometric properties of two commonly used violence measures, in this case, for Mexican-American adolescent females. The Conflict Tactics Scales (CTS2) and the Past Feelings and Acts of Violence Scale (PFAV) were analyzed to examine their inter-item reliability, criterion validity and discriminant validity. A sample of 150 low risk and 150 high risk adolescent females were studied. The analysis resulted in high inter-item reliability for the PFAV and strong correlations with the Hispanic Stress Inventroy (HSI), CES-D, Mother-Daughter Relationship Scale, and eight of the CTS2 scales. The CTS2 scales exhibited moderate to high inter-item reliability. The CTS2 victim and perpetrator physical assault, psychological aggression, and injury scales were strongly correlated with all the criterion measures while the victim and perpetrator sexual coercion scales failed to correlate significantly with the Mother-Daughter Relationship Scale. The CTS2 victim and perpetrator negotiation scales only correlated significantly with the HSI-Family/Culture Conflict Scale. Discriminant validity was indicated by the perpetrator negotiation scale, and victim psychological aggression and sexual coercion scales of the CTS2 and the PFAV. Analysis indicates that the CTS2 scales and the PFAV demonstrate adequate reliability, while strong criterion validity was evidenced by eight of the CTS2 scales and the PF