Associations among the parent–adolescent relationship, aggression and delinquency in different ethnic groups: a replication across two Dutch samples

Background: The aim of the present study is to examine whether the patterns of association between the quality of the parent-adolescent relationship on the one hand, and aggression and delinquency on the other hand, are the same for boys and girls of Dutch and Moroccan origin living in the Netherlands. Since inconsistent results have been found previously, the present study tests the replicability of the model of associations in two different Dutch samples of adolescents. Method: Study 1 included 288 adolescents (M age = 14.9, range 12-17 years) all attending lower secondary education. Study 2 included 306 adolescents (M age = 13.2, range = 12-15 years) who were part of a larger community sample with oversampling of at risk adolescents. Results: Multigroup structural analyses showed that neither in Study 1 nor in Study 2 ethnic or gender differences were found in the patterns of associations between support, autonomy, disclosure, and negativity in the parent-adolescent relationship and aggression and delinquency. The patterns were largely similar for both studies. Mainly negative quality of the relationship in both studies was found to be strongly related to both aggression and delinquency. Discussion: Results show that family processes that affect adolescent development, show a large degree of universality across gender and ethnicity

Psychosocial adaptation of adolescent migrants in a Swiss community survey

OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to compare psychosocial adaptation in adolescent (first generation) migrants, double-citizens (mainly second generation with one migrant parent), and native Swiss, and to compare migrants from various European regions. METHOD: Data from a community survey were based on 1,239 participants (mean age 13.8, SD = 1.6 years) with 996 natives, 55 double-citizens, and 188 migrants. The adolescents completed the youth self-report measuring emotional and behavioural problems, and various questionnaires addressing life events, personality variables, perceived parental behaviour (PPB), family functioning, school environment, and social network. RESULTS: Adolescent migrants had significantly higher scores for internalizing and externalizing problems. There was a pattern of various unfavourable psychosocial features including life events, coping, self-related cognitions, and PPB that was more common among adolescent migrants than natives. Double-citizens were similar to natives in all domains. Young adolescents from South and South-East Europe differed from natives in terms of more unfavourable psychosocial features. Migrant status was best predicted by adverse psychosocial features rather than emotional and behavioural problems. CONCLUSION: There is some indication that certain migrant adolescents are at risk of psychosocial mal-adaptation. Obviously, ethnic origin is an important moderator

The myeloid-lymphoid initiating cell (ML-IC) assay assesses the fate of multipotent human progenitors in vitro

Hematopoietic stem cells (HSC) are cells with self-renewing multilineage differentiation potential. Although engraftment in xenogeneic recipients can be used to measure human HSC, these assays do not allow assessment of individual progenitors. We developed an in vitro assay that allows the identification of a single human bone marrow progenitor closely related to HSC, which we termed "Myeloid-Lymphoid Initiating Cell," or ML-IC, because it is capable of generating multiple secondary progenitors that can reinitiate long-term myeloid and lymphoid hematopoiesis in vitro. The assay is done in contact with murine AFT024 fetal liver stromal cells and with Flt3-Ligand, stem cell factor, and interleukin-7. In this assay, 0.2% to 1.7% of Lin -/34(+)/DRdim cells could generate 1 to 3 long-term culture initiating cells (LTC-IC) as well as 1 to 4 NK-IC after 4 to 6 weeks. In addition, this assay measures contribution of net-progenitor conservation and net-progenitor proliferation over time, providing insight in the fate of individual LTC-IC and NK-IC. This assay will prove useful to enumerate the number of very primitive human progenitors with multilineage differentiation potential, as well as to evaluate future ex vivo culture conditions.status: publishe