Acculturation in context: The moderating effects of immigrant and native peer orientations on immigrants’ acculturation experiences

Immigrant adolescents have to navigate through a complex social environment consisting of, at least, both a native and a co-ethnic community. This study used a multi-level framework to consider two research questions involving this complexity. The individual-level associations of acculturation orientations and acculturative hassles (language and sociocultural adaptation) was assessed in immigrant youths, and whether this association differs depending on the school-level acculturation orientations held by co-ethnic peers, and the school-level orientations toward immigrants held by native German peers. We then investigated whether acculturative hassles are associated with the psychosocial functioning (self-efficacy, depressive symptoms) of immigrant adolescents. The sample comprised 650 ethnic German Diaspora migrant adolescents (mean age 15.6 years, 53.7 % female) and their 787 native German peers (mean age 15.05 years, 51 % female). The results showed that contextual factors (co-ethnic acculturation orientation, native friendship preferences) moderated the association between the acculturation orientations of adolescent immigrants and both types of acculturative hassles. Acculturative hassles, in turn, were associated with the psychosocial functioning of adolescents. This research demonstrates that a person-by-context perspective is needed to better understand the adaptation of adolescent immigrants. This perspective has to take into account both the native and the co-ethnic peer environment

Ethnic diversity and students’ social adjustment in Dutch classrooms

Research in the US indicates that classroom diversity is related to better social adjustment of students, but research on this association in European classrooms is limited in scope and yields inconsistent findings. This study examined how classroom ethnic diversity is related to social adjustment of societally dominant versus minoritized ethnic groups, and how an open classroom climate for discussion contributes to this. This was examined in low to moderately diverse Dutch classrooms (2703 secondary school students, from 119 classrooms and schools, Mage = 14, 50% female, 18% foreign-born parents). Results revealed that students from minoritized groups reported lower social adjustment. For all students, classroom ethnic diversity was related to worse social adjustment which was partly explained by classroom socioeconomic status (SES). An open classroom climate for discussion did not moderate the relation between diversity and social adjustment. The findings indicate that students’ social adjustment is worse in ethnically diverse and low-SES classrooms, and an open classroom climate for discussion does not solve this

Group identity and peer relations: a longitudinal study of group identity, perceived peer acceptance, and friendships amongst ethnic minority English children

This research examined whether peer relationships amongst ethnic minority status children reflect the social groups to which children belong and the degree to which they identify with these groups. A longitudinal study was conducted to investigate the influence of group identities (i.e., ethnic and national) on children’s perceived peer acceptance and preference for same-ethnic friendships. Measures of ethnic and English identification, perceived peer acceptance, and friendship choice were administered to 207 south-Asian English children, aged between 5 and 11, at two time points 6 months apart. In line with predictions, longitudinal analysis showed that bicultural identification (i.e., higher ethnic and English identity) was related to higher perceived peer acceptance and less preference for same-ethnic friendships. Importantly, as hypothesized, this finding was limited to the older children with more advanced social-cognitive abilities. The results suggest that older children who adopted a bicultural identity were able to strategically ‘flag’ their multiple group identities, within their multicultural peer groups, to obtain acceptance amongst the maximum number of peers and show less preference for same-ethnic friendships. This study extends previous peer relations research, which has typically focused on individual social deficits or classroom norms, by showing that group identities influence peer relationships amongst ethnic minority status children