Coping is a process that has been studied extensively in the adult literature, while relatively little research has addressed this area in child and adolescent populations (Brodzinsky, Elias, Steiger, Simon, Gill, & Hitt, 1992; de Anda, Baroni, Boskin, Buchwald, Morgan, Ow, Gold, & Weiss, 2000). When the focus is narrowed to high-risk youth, the available coping literature is lesser still. Adolescents growing up in impoverished, violent inner-city communities represent one such at-risk population. Inner-city youth are faced with a considerable amount of stress at multiple levels (e.g., environmental, developmental) and have been found to experience elevated psychological distress (Gibbs, 1998). One protective factor consistently associated with positive outcomes in adolescents who live with the numerous stressors of the inner-city has been coping (Cowen, Work, Wyman, Parker, Wannon, & Gribble, 1992; Dumont & Provost, 1999; Herman-Stahl & Peterson, 1996; Parker, Cowen, Work, & Wyman, 1990; Vig, 1996; Work, Cowen, Parker, & Wyman, 1990) The present study examined coping patterns in a sample of inner-city adolescents. Problem-Focused (generally positive approaches) and Emotion-Focused (generally negative approaches) coping were used differentially by different age groups. Specifically, older adolescents (9th through 12 th grades) were found to use more Emotion-Focused coping, while their younger peers (5th through 8th grades) reported more Problem-Focused coping. Gender differences in coping were negligible. Coping strategies significantly correlated with community violence (i.e., Venting and Resignation) were generally negative and nonproductive. Potential moderators of the violence-coping relation were investigated as well. Partial support was revealed for gender and perception of controllability as moderators, while there were no such effects for age
