1. Social coping
Social stress includes stress from interpersonal communication, emotional stress and stress from
studies. It is very evident that the grantees are bothered and intimidated with the regular students not
only because of the regular students’ competitive curriculum but also because of the continuous
comparison between them and the regular students. Being compared brings psychosocial stress which
has anxiety being the highest predictor. Anxiety is very much manifested in their self-pity afer being
discriminated both by teachers and regular students. But being filipinos, their innate resiliency helps
them make it through the day.
Being flexible with their coping, the grantees use the appropraite coping mechanism for stress in
discrimination by avoiding the stressful situation or emotion-focused coping. They just let the insults
slide and focus on making themselves better. We should take note that emotion-focused coping is only
used for uncontrollable situations. Having no control over the sitaution, the grantees find it smater and
more stress-free to just let the thing go and move on. Influencing the utilization of appropriate coping
strategies include social skills and social support. Taking inot consideration the conscious effort of the
grantees to feel and be better, they try to make friends with their immediate circle. Creating a stress-
free environment around friends helps them to not dwell on the social stress but rather build a happy
diversion from all the stress from social circumstances and stess from studies.
From the central themes being drawn, we can conclude that the coping mechanisms being utilized in
socil coping is emotion-focused coping. Diverting thei r attentionfrom the stress of discrimination and
having a strong social support group, enables them to concentrate with their studies and perfom well in
school. Having a strong social support group lessens not social stress but also mental stress because they
have people to share the stress with and create a pleasant distraction from these stresses.