Two sides of a story: Mothers' and adolescents' agreement on child disclosure in immigrant and native families

Research on immigrant families often has suggested that the process of immigration can lead to a distancing of adolescents and their parents. This study examined the actual agreement of immigrant and native mother–adolescent dyads in their reports on children’s disclosure as an indicator for a trusting mother–child relationship. The research questions related to group-level differences (immigrant vs. native dyads) in mother–adolescent agreement, the prediction of interdyadic differences in mother–adolescent agreement, and the associations between mother–adolescent agreement and both family conflicts and adolescents’ depressive symptoms. The sample was comprised of mother–adolescent dyads: 197 native German dyads (adolescents: mean age 14.7 years, 53 % female) and 185 immigrant dyads from the former Soviet Union (adolescents: mean age 15.7 years, 60 % female). Agreement was assessed using the intraclass correlation coefficient. The results revealed that mother–adolescent agreement was lower in immigrant dyads than in native dyads. In both samples, higher levels of adolescent autonomy predicted lower mother–adolescent agreement. Among immigrants, language brokering was an additional predictor of lower levels of mother–adolescent agreement. The interaction of language brokering and autonomy also turned out to be significant, indicating that if an adolescent was high in language brokering or autonomy, the effect of the other variable was negligible. In both groups, mother–adolescent agreement was negatively related to family conflicts. The study shows that processes in immigrant and native families are rather similar, but that in immigrant families some additional acculturation-related factors have to be considered for a full understanding of family dynamics

Friendships Fighting Prejudice: A Longitudinal Perspective on Adolescents’ Cross-Group Friendships with Immigrants

Increasingly, adolescents are growing up in multiethnic multicultural societies. While intergroup prejudice can threaten the multicultural societal cohesion, intergroup friendships are strong predictors of reduced prejudice. Thus, more research is needed to fully understand the development of intergroup friendships and their relations to less prejudicial attitudes. This study addressed two major developmental research questions: first, whether longitudinal patterns of intergroup friendships of native adolescents (i.e., whether or not a native German adolescent has a friendship with an immigrant at different points in time) relate to changes in rates of prejudice about immigrants. Second, whether these friendship patterns that unfold over time can be predicted by contact opportunities, attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control assessed at the beginning of the study. The sample included 372 native German adolescents (14.7 years of age at first assessment, 62.3 % girls) who showed one of four friendship trajectories over the three annual assessments: they either maintained, gained, never had, or lost a friendship with an outgroup peer. In particular, results showed that adolescents who gained an intergroup friendship over the three time points showed a significant decrease in negative prejudice over the study. All four theorized predictors contributed to explain friendship trajectory membership. Generally, adolescents with many opportunities for contact, positive attitudes about contact, perceived positive social norms for contact, and high levels of behavioral control (self-efficacy) were more likely to maintain a friendship with an outgroup member than to follow any of the three other friendship trajectories (gain, lost, or never had). The pattern of predictions differed, however, depending on the specific pairs of friendship trajectories compared