2.1. Participants
One-hundred nine students in eighth grade from a nonreligious private middle school, consisting mainly of ethnically and socioeconomically minoritized adolescents from New York City, participated in the study. The youth, ages 12 to 13, were primarily Latin American (35%), Asian (24%), African (18%), European (6%) and African American (11%) with the other 6% reporting either other or mixed ethnic backgrounds. Out of the participants, 44% (Approximately 76% of the participants were first-generation Americans, with 82% coming from two-parent households. Sixty-three percent of the group leaders were female, while 58% were born in the US. The remaining group leaders originated from countries such as Australia, China, Switzerland, Serbia, and Italy. Over the course of four years (2015–2016, 2016–2017, 2017–2018, 2018–2019), 47.6% of a total of 229 eighth-grade adolescents attending this middle school took part in one of the two intervention conditions. Twenty-five students (45% of their cohort) participated in the first year, 24 students (39% of their cohort) in the second year, 42 students (68% of their cohort) in the third year, and 18 students (39% of their cohort) in the fourth year. Across all four years, 47.6% of the eighth-grade adolescents attending this middle school (