Daily Intragroup Contact in Diverse Settings: Implications for Asian Adolescents' Ethnic Identity

This study examined the daily‐level association between contact with same‐ethnic others and ethnic private regard among 132 Asian adolescents (mean age = 14 years) attending four high schools ranging in ethnic composition diversity. The data suggest a positive daily‐level association between contact with same‐ethnic others and ethnic private regard for adolescents, who were highly identified with their ethnic group and who attended predominantly White or ethnically heterogeneous schools. In addition, using time lag analyses, contact with same‐ethnic others yesterday was positively related to ethnic private regard today, but ethnic private regard yesterday was unrelated to contact with same‐ethnic others today, suggesting that adolescents' identity is responsive to their environments. The implications of these findings for the development of ethnic identity are discussed.     

Parental Cultural Socialization and Adolescent Private Regard: Exploring Mediating Pathways Through Daily Experiences

Using longitudinal experience sampling data from 214 ethnic/racial minority adolescents (Wave 1 M_age = 15.24), the present study investigated how the longitudinal effect of parental cultural socialization on adolescent private regard was mediated through various daily pathways and novel constructs. Both the mean levels and variability of adolescents' ethnic feelings (i.e., private regard) and social interactions (i.e., intragroup contact) in daily situations, as well as the situational association between intragroup contact and private regard, emerged as mediators. Greater cultural socialization promoted greater and more stable ethnic feelings and interactions, as well as their situational association, all of which promoted private regard over time. This study provides a framework to explore how development occurs in daily lives.     

A longitudinal study of religious identity and participation during adolescence

To examine the development of religious identity during the teenage years, adolescents (N = 477) from Latin American, Asian, and European backgrounds completed questionnaires in the 10th, 11th, and 12th grades (10th grade age: M = 15.81, SD = 0.36). Results indicated that religious identity remained stable across high school whereas religious participation declined. Even after controlling for ethnic differences in religious affiliation, socioeconomic background, and generational status, adolescents from Latin American and Asian backgrounds reported higher levels of religious identity and adolescents from Latin American backgrounds reported higher rates of religious participation. Within individual adolescents, changes in religious identity were associated with changes in ethnic and family identities, suggesting important linkages in the development of these social identities during adolescence.     

Daily Ethnic/Racial Context in Peer Groups: Frequency,Structure, and Implications for Adolescent Outcomes

Ethnic/racial context in peer groups is poorly understood. Using daily data from 178 ethnically/racially diverse adolescents (M_age = 14.53) over 2 weeks, this study investigated peer processes related to ethnicity/race (peer ethnic/racial processes) in everyday life. On average, peer ethnic/racial processes occurred about 1 to 4 days over the 2 weeks. On days when adolescents reported more negative peer ethnic/racial processes (indicated by ethnic/racial teasing, discrimination, victimization, and partially by preparation for bias), they also reported lower school engagement. On days when adolescents reported more positive peer ethnic/racial processes (indicated by cultural socialization, support against discrimination, and partially by preparation for bias), they exhibited more prosocial behaviors and greater ethnic/racial identity private regard. Similar associations emerged at the between-person level.     

Teacher–student relationships,psychological need satisfaction,and happiness among diverse students

Teacher–student relationships have been linked to autonomous motivation and achievement. However, relatively little is known about whether satisfying students’ psychological needs mediates the association between teacher–student relationships and student happiness. Furthermore, this relationship needs to be examined in samples of students from different ethnic and racial backgrounds. In this structural equation modeling study (N = 1,961), we found that teacher–student relationships were positively and moderately associated with the satisfaction of psychological needs for autonomy, relatedness, and competence. Satisfying psychological needs, in turn, was moderately positively associated with happiness. These findings held across African American, Asian American, and Latinx subsamples. For the overall sample, students in higher grade levels perceived that their psychological needs were met to a lesser degree than students in earlier grades. However, only the Latinx subsample replicated this effect. Teacher–student relationships may promote happiness via meeting psychological needs.     

Daily variation in ethnic identity,ethnic behaviors,and psychological well-being among American adolescents of Chinese descent

This study examined the links among Chinese American adolescents' (N = 96) global ethnic identity and their ethnic behaviors, ethnic identity salience, and psychological well-being based on daily diaries collected over a 2-week period. The daily association between engagement in ethnic behaviors and ethnic salience was positive regardless of overall ethnic identity. The daily-level association between ethnic identity salience and well-being, however, was dependent on adolescents' global ethnic identity. Among adolescents who were moderate or high in global ethnic identity, ethnic identity salience was consistently associated with positive well-being at the daily level. In contrast, the daily association between ethnic identity salience and well-being was less strong for youths who were low in ethnic identity. Additionally, a higher level of salience and a weaker association between salience and negative symptoms was found for girls than for boys, and older youths reported a weaker association between salience and positive symptoms than did younger youths.     

Sleep Facilitates Coping: Moderated Mediation of Daily Sleep,Ethnic/Racial Discrimination,Stress Responses,and Adolescent Well-Being

Using a daily diary design and actigraphy sleep data across 2 weeks among 256 ethnic/racial minority adolescents (M_age = 14.72; 40% Asian, 22% Black, 38% Latinx; 2,607 days), this study investigated how previous-night sleep (duration, quality) moderated the same-day associations between ethnic/racial discrimination and stress responses (rumination, problem solving, family/peer support seeking) to predict daily well-being (mood, somatic symptoms, life satisfaction). On days when adolescents experienced greater discrimination, if they slept longer and better the previous night, adolescents engaged in greater active coping (problem solving, peer support seeking), and subsequently had better well-being. Adolescents also ruminated less when they slept longer the previous night regardless of discrimination. Findings highlight the role of sleep in helping adolescents navigate discrimination by facilitating coping processes.     

A 5‐Year Longitudinal Study on Mood Variability Across Adolescence Using Daily Diaries

This study explored the development of mood variability in 474 Dutch adolescents (56.8% male, 90.1% medium to high socioeconomic status) from a community sample, followed from ages 13 to 18 years. Three times per year, adolescents reported on daily happiness, anger, sadness, and anxiety for 5 days using Internet diaries (15 assessment weeks; from 2006 to 2010). Mood variability scores were calculated as means of absolute differences between consecutive days. Results showed that happiness, anger, and sadness variability continuously declined across adolescence, while anxiety variability increased initially, then decreased, and then increased toward late adolescence. Despite females experiencing higher happiness and sadness variability, the rate of change across adolescence was similar for both sexes. Implications for normative emotional development and future studies are discussed.     

The impact of family obligation on the daily activities and psychological well-being of Chinese American adolescents

A daily diary method was employed to examine the extent to which Chinese adolescents in the United States assist and spend time with their families, and the implications of such behaviors for their involvement in other activities and psychological well-being. Adolescents (N = 140) completed checklists in which they reported their activities and psychological well-being every day for a period of 2 weeks. Adolescents showed a greater propensity to balance family obligations with their academic demands than with their social life with peers on a daily basis. Girls experienced slightly more daily conflict between activities than boys. Neither the extent of involvement in family obligations nor the balancing of family obligations with other activities were associated with psychological distress among adolescents. These findings demonstrate the complex manner in which adolescents from immigrant families attempt to combine their cultural traditions with selected aspects of American society on a daily basis. In contrast to the expectations of some observers, the youths in this study appeared to accomplish such an integration with little cost to their psychological well-being.     

Family and school spillover in adolescents' daily lives

This study examined spillover between daily family stressors and school problems among 589 ninth-grade students (mean age = 14.9 years) from Mexican, Chinese, and European backgrounds. Spillover was examined using a daily diary methodology in which adolescents reported on their school and family experiences each day for 2 weeks. Analyses using hierarchical linear modeling revealed reciprocal spillover effects between adolescents' daily functioning in the family and school domains that spanned several days. Longitudinal analyses indicated that spillover between family stressors and school problems also occurs across the high school years, from 9th to 12th grade, and that both are predictive of poorer academic performance in 12th grade. These findings have practical implications for adolescents' academic achievement trajectories and general well-being.     

Family interdependence and academic adjustment in college: youth from immigrant and U.S.-born families

This study is an examination of family interdependence and its implications for academic adjustment among late adolescents and young adults in college (18 to 25 years). Survey data and university records were collected on 998 American youth with Asian Pacific, Latino, African/Afro-Caribbean, and European backgrounds. Results indicate that Asian Pacific Americans placed more importance on family interdependence than did European Americans. Across all panethnic groups, youth with immigrant parents placed greater emphasis on family interdependence than did youth with U.S.-born parents. The study distinguished between family interdependence attitudes and behaviors and found that they had counteracting influences on academic adjustment: Family obligation attitudes contributed to greater academic motivation among youth from immigrant as compared with U.S.-born families, but greater behavioral demands detracted from achievement.     

Cultural transition and academic achievement of students from ethnic minority backgrounds: a content analysis of empirical research on acculturation

Background: The achievement gap between immigrant and non-immigrant students that has been identified in most OECD countries and the considerable educational dropout rate among students from ethnic minority backgrounds in some countries have become serious challenges for national educational systems. The educational underachievement of young people from ethnic minority backgrounds is embedded in the process of their acculturation. In the tradition of cross-cultural psychology, acculturation describes individual or ethno-cultural group changes in behaviour and attitudes in the situation of intercultural contact. Such cultural changes are central to the experience of ethnic minority students including newly arriving immigrants, children of immigrants and members of marginalised ethnic and racial groups. Acculturation has been described as a stressful process, and acculturation orientations adopted by young people from ethnic minority backgrounds have been shown to have an impact on their adjustment.

Purpose: The school context has been recognised to be the crucial context for acculturation of young people from ethnic minority backgrounds. The academic achievement of these students is thus embedded in the acculturation process, which involves cultural identity development, psychological adjustment and behavioural adjustment. The study is aimed at analysing and systematising the findings of empirical research on acculturation in the school context with a focus on the academic achievement of young people from minority backgrounds.

Design and methods: For this study, 29 peer-reviewed articles from a total of 348 articles that matched the search criteria in the database of the Education Resources Information Centre were selected according to inclusion criteria. The selected articles addressed academic achievement of young people from minority backgrounds in relation to at least one of the issues of acculturation such as cultural identity, psychological adjustment and behavioural adjustment. The articles were analysed by applying the method of qualitative content analysis, using MAXQDA software. The findings presented in the selected articles were analysed and integrated according to a deductively developed and inductively enriched category system.

Conclusions: Overall, the results of our analysis offer insight into issues of acculturation in relation to academic achievement. Moreover, our findings reveal the complexity of the relationship between cultural transition and school adjustment for young people. As shown in our review, although a bi-cultural orientation was predominantly positively related to school adjustment of minority students, some studies also identified assimilative attitudes as advantageous for students’ academic achievement as well as for their psychological and behavioural adjustment. Moreover, our study has also shown that young people’s acculturative attitudes may have a different impact on their school adjustment relative to acculturative behaviours.     

The role of social support in well-being and coping with self-reported stressful events in adolescents

OBJECTIVE: This study investigated the role that social support plays in well-being and in coping after a stressful event in a group of non-clinical adolescents. Furthermore, this study aimed at replicating the finding that adolescents who reported sexual abuse reported more symptoms and less adequate coping strategies than adolescents who reported another type of stressful event or no stressful episode. METHOD: Eight hundred and twenty adolescents between 12 and 18 years of age filled out questionnaires assessing social support (Social Support Questionnaire, Sarason, Shearin, Pierce, & Sarason, 1987), trauma-related symptoms (Trauma Symptom Checklist for Children, Briere, 1996), behavior problems (Youth Self-Report, Achenbach, 1991), and coping (How I Cope Under Pressure Scale, Ayers, Sandler, West, & Roosa, 1996). RESULTS: 42% of the adolescents reported a stressful experience, and 4.4% reported sexual abuse. Sexually abused adolescents reported more stress-related symptoms and used more avoidance and fewer support-seeking coping strategies than the other adolescents. The main-effect hypothesis of social support was sustained, but social support did not moderate the relation between a stressful event and coping. Yet, a trend was found suggesting that high support from the family was associated with less avoidance coping and more support-seeking in adolescents who reported a non-sexually abusive, stressful event. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings show that a highly perceived availability of social support is directly associated with fewer trauma-related symptoms, especially in adolescents who are non-sexually abused. For adolescents who reported a sexual or another type of stressful event, social support did not play a different role in coping.     

Progress in the inductive strategy-use of children from different ethnic backgrounds: a study employing dynamic testing

This study investigated potential differences in inductive behavioural and verbal strategy-use between children (aged 6–8 years) from indigenous and non-indigenous backgrounds. This was effected by the use of an electronic device that could present a series of tasks, offer scaffolded assistance and record children’s responses. Children from non-indigenous ethnic backgrounds, starting at a lower level, profited as much from dynamic testing as did indigenous children but were unable to progress to the standard of this latter group. Irrespective of ethnic group, dynamic testing resulted in greater accuracy, fewer corrections, and reduced trial-and-error behaviour than repeated practice. Improvements in strategy-use were noted at both the group and individual level. After dynamic training, children from both ethnic groups showed a superior capacity for inductive reasoning although indigenous children subsequently used more inductive strategies. The study revealed individual differences between and within different ethnic groups and variability in the sorts of help required and subsequent strategy progression paths.     

Gender differences in adolescents' daily interpersonal events and well-being

This study examined daily interpersonal events with parents and friends and daily well-being among 589 ninth-grade students (mean age = 14.9 years) from Mexican, Chinese, and European backgrounds. Associations were examined using a daily diary methodology whereby adolescents reported on positive and negative interpersonal experiences and mood each day for 2 weeks. Analyses using hierarchical linear modeling revealed bidirectional associations between adolescents' daily social interactions and mood. Findings indicated gender differences in adolescents' reactivity to daily interpersonal events as well as in the strength of daily mood as a predictor of interpersonal events. Furthermore, the ratio of positive to negative events experienced daily was consequential for adolescents' daily mood. Findings have practical implications for adolescents' everyday functioning and potential long-term adjustment.     

Ethnic Identity in Everyday Life: The Influence of Identity Development Status

The current study explores the intersection of ethnic identity development and significance in a sample of 354 diverse adolescents (mean age 14). Adolescents completed surveys five times a day for 1 week. Cluster analyses revealed four identity clusters: diffused, foreclosed, moratorium, and achieved. Achieved adolescents reported the highest levels of identity salience across situations, followed by moratorium adolescents. Achieved and moratorium adolescents also reported a positive association between identity salience and private regard. For foreclosed and achieved adolescents reporting low levels of centrality, identity salience was associated with lower private regard. For foreclosed and achieved adolescents reporting high levels of centrality, identity salience was associated with higher private regard.     

Career Development Among Ethnic and Age Groups of Community College Students

The purpose of this study was to examine differences in career development among four ethnic groups and two age groups of community college students in regard to their career goals, career preparation actions, and the number of job seeking strategies utilized. Data were obtained from the Beginning Postsecondary Students Longitudinal Study (BPS: 90/94) of the National Center for Educational Statistics (NOES), U.S. Department of Education. Results suggest that there are statistically significant differences among the ethnic groups in six of the seven career goals; however, there are no significant differences between the traditional and non-traditional age groups in career goals. For career preparation action there are significant differences between the two age groups and also between Black/African American and White/European American students. There is no significant difference among the age or ethnic groups in the number of job seeking strategies utilized. These findings imply that student services providers, such as counselors, should be sensitive to community college students' backgrounds and experiences related to ethnicity and age. Individualized career-related workshops tailored to the career needs of specific student populations should be offered. The function of community colleges as providers of employment preparation can be enhanced by familiarizing students with accurate career information, considering students' ethnic backgrounds and their age.     

Attitudes toward Family Obligations among American Adolescents with Asian, Latin American, and European Backgrounds

This study was designed to examine the attitudes toward family obligations among over 800 American tenth ( M age = 15.7 years) and twelfth ( M age = 17.7 years) grade students from Filipino, Chinese, Mexican, Central and South American, and European backgrounds. Asian and Latin American adolescents possessed stronger values and greater expectations regarding their duty to assist, respect, and support their families than their peers with European backgrounds. These differences tended to be large and were consistent across the youths' generation, gender, family composition, and socioeconomic background. Whereas an emphasis on family obligations tended to be associated with more positive family and peer relationships and academic motivation, adolescents who indicated the strongest endorsement of their obligations tended to receive school grades just as low as or even lower than those with the weakest endorsement. There was no evidence, however, that the ethnic variations in attitudes produced meaningful group differences in the adolescents' development. These findings suggest that even within a society that emphasizes adolescent autonomy and independence, youths from families with collectivistic traditions retain their parents' familistic values and that these values do not have a negative impact upon their development.     

Reciprocal influences between stressful life events and adolescent internalizing and externalizing problems

Investigated in this study were hypothesized reciprocal influences between stressful life events and adolescent maladjustment using data from a 6-year, prospective longitudinal study. Stressful life experiences, internalizing symptoms, and externalizing behaviors were assessed for a sample of adolescents (215 males, 236 females) living in the rural Midwest. From 7th to 12th grades, autoregressive analyses showed that stressful life events and these two forms of maladjustment were reciprocally interrelated over time. For example, stressful life events at one point significantly predicted delinquent behaviors 1 year later, which, in turn, significantly predicted stressful life events 1 year later, and vice versa. The findings provide evidence for the accumulating disadvantage for adolescents that results from the mutual reinforcement of problematic situations and adjustment problems over time.     

Educational Debt Burden Among Student Borrowers: An Analysis of the Baccalaureate & Beyond Panel, 1997 Follow-Up

Using the National Center for Education Statistics' Baccalaureate & Beyond Longitudinal Survey, a nationally representative sample of 1992–1993 college graduates, this paper examines the relationship between educational debt burden and student race, ethnic, gender and income characteristics 4 years after receiving the bachelor's degree. The results indicate strong effects of family income, race and ethnicity on excessive educational debt burden among student borrowers. That is, students from lower-income backgrounds, Blacks and Hispanics have a significantly greater risk to have excessive educational debt burden 4 years after receiving the baccalaureate degree. Students with high educational debt burdens borrow more for college and have lower average salaries than do other students.