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Sense of academic futility entails feelings of having no control over ones' educational success. Although mounting evidence points to its negative consequences for students' educational outcomes, less is known about its socio-contextual antecedents. Relatedly, the current study explored how fair and supportive relationships with teachers are related to the sense of academic futility and if class belonging mediates this link in a sample of adolescents with immigrant and non-immigrant backgrounds. A total of 1065 seventh-grade students (Mage = 13.12; SD = 0.42; 45% girls) from 55 classrooms completed questionnaires at two time points 1 year apart. Results of multilevel analyses indicated that fair and supportive relationships with teachers contributed to decreases in sense of academic futility at the individual but not at the classroom level. No mediation or moderation effects emerged. These findings highlight the crucial role of democratic student-teacher relationships in supporting the positive school adjustment of all students in increasingly multicultural societies.

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The usage of the new language is a crucial aspect in immigrant youth adaptation. However, despite substantial inter- and intraindividual variability and dynamic changes, language usage has been studied primarily with a focus on static interindividual differences. This study utilized a recently introduced Temporal Model of Acculturative Change to test associations between language acquisition and friendship homophily. More specifically, three concepts were tested: pace (individual rate of change), relative timing (the deviation from peers with similar length of residence), and transition timing (preparedness for the relocation). Data comprised a three-wave-longitudinal sample of 820 ethnic German adolescents from Eastern European States who immigrated to Germany (Mage = 16.1, 57% girls). Results revealed, particularly among recent immigrant adolescents, that transition timing predicted earlier relative acculturation timing in language usage and that early relative timing in language usage predicted levels and change rates in friendship homophily (over and above acculturation pace and the actual level of language usage). Findings highlight the need to better understand the dynamics in acculturation processes of immigrant youth.

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BACKGROUND: Few studies have investigated disparities in disordered eating between new immigrant and native adolescents in Taiwan. This study examines the differential pathways to disordered eating in these two populations. METHODS: This cross-sectional study analyzed data collected from March to June 2019. In total, 729 adolescents aged between 13 and 16 years recruited from 37 classes in 3 middle schools in New Taipei City were included in the final analysis. Standardized assessment tools measured disordered eating (EAT-26) and psychological distress (BSRS-5). Generalized structural equation modeling was used to conduct the path analysis. RESULTS: The prevalence of disordered eating was significantly higher in immigrant adolescents than in their native counterparts. Multipath models indicated that weight-teasing driven by overweight and obese status and weight overestimation could lead to disordered eating through psychological distress; however, the pathways differed for the two groups studied. Family weigh-teasing indirectly leads to disordered eating through psychological distress for native adolescents; by contrast, for immigrant adolescents, friend weigh-teasing indirectly leads to disordered eating through psychological distress. Additionally, weight overestimation directly leads to disordered eating and indirectly through psychological distress to disordered eating for immigrant adolescents. CONCLUSION: This study offers a plausible explanation of the differences in the paths to disordered eating between immigrant and native adolescents in Taiwan, which was not reported previously. The study urges the need for school-based prevention programs to improve immigrant students' mental health.

This study fills the gap in the literature on disparities in disordered eating and factors associated with disordered eating among immigrant adolescents in Taiwan. To our knowledge, this is the first study focusing on disordered eating among immigrant adolescents in Taiwan. The unique contribution of this research is to elucidate the different pathways leading to disordered eating for native and immigrant adolescents. In native adolescents, weight-teasing by family members but not by friends was indirectly related to disordered eating through psychological distress. In adolescents with an immigrant background, weight-teasing by friends was indirectly associated with disordering eating through psychological distress. Additionally, weight overestimation is a unique risk factor directly and indirectly through psychological distress related to disordered eating for immigrant adolescents. As a highly Westernized country, the Taiwanese's mainstream ideal body shape is "thinness." Substantial social discrimination against obese adolescents regarding peer acceptance and sexual attraction may put immigrant adolescents at an increased risk of experiencing body dissatisfaction, psychological stress, and eating disorder symptoms due to their minority status, struggling to adapt to a social environment different from their parents, and wanting peer acceptance. The study urges the need for school-based prevention programs to improve immigrant students' mental health.

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INTRODUCTION: More than 25% of American adolescents live in immigrant families. This cohort of adolescents is a minority group with amplified health challenges. The purpose of this study was to provide an integrative review of quantitative research on the access and use of primary and preventive health care by adolescents in immigrant families. METHOD: Searches yielded 460 reports, 54 of them satisfied criteria for full-text review, and four publications met inclusion criteria. RESULTS: Research, albeit very limited, revealed that adolescents in immigrant families have poor access to and use of preventive health care. DISCUSSION: Lack of primary health care may prevent identification of health risks in immigrant adolescents and lead them to perceive that preventive health care is unnecessary. Researchers are challenged to develop and test health promotion interventions tailored for these adolescents. Study recruitment outside of high schools, the typical setting, is critical to advance knowledge and improve access for this vulnerable population.

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Securing a clear sense of identity is a critical issue in adolescence, yet the role that cultural identity plays in the well-being of youths remains unclear. This study aims to examine the relationship between cultural identity and mental health among three groups of adolescents in Hong Kong with different residential backgrounds. Data came from a cross-sectional survey with 2180 4th-9th grade students in Hong Kong. Cultural identity was assessed by whether the youths identify themselves as local Hong Kong people, mainland Chinese, both Hong Kong and mainland Chinese, or confused about which group to belong to. Mental health was assessed by self-esteem, mental well-being, happiness, social anxiety, and depression. Multiple linear regression was performed to examine the relationship between cultural identity and mental health, adjusting for sociodemographic variables. The regression results suggested adolescents with confused cultural identity scored lower in all positive indicators of mental health compared with those with a clear cultural identification. No significant association was found between cultural identity and social anxiety/depression. Uncertainty in cultural identification may be detrimental for the mental health of adolescents living in a multicultural society. Interventions may consider cultivating clear cultural identities among adolescents to promote their mental health.

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Introduction: Immigrant adolescents must adapt their physical and mental attitudes to attain healthy development due to dramatic changes in their living and learning environments after relocation. From the perspective of positive psychology, this study explored the specific influence of school adaptation on mental health among immigrant adolescents, mainly focusing on the mediating effects of positive academic emotions and conduct problems. Methods: We selected primary and secondary school students from five relocated resettlement schools in Qianxinan Buyi and Miao Autonomous Prefecture, which has the largest population of relocated people in Guizhou Province, China. Using cluster sampling, 550 relocated students in Grades 5-12 from the five schools were recruited to complete a battery of questionnaires, including the Immigrant Adolescents' School Adaptation Scale, the General Health Scale, and the Positive Academic Emotions Questionnaire, and the Adolescents' Behavioral Tendency Questionnaire. In addition, this study used the bias-corrected bootstrap method to explore the chain-mediating effect of positive academic emotions and conduct problems between school adaptation and mental health. Results: The results showed that immigrant adolescents had significant gender differences only in conduct problems. However, significant learning stage differences existed in school adaptation, mental health, positive academic emotions, and conduct problems. School adaptation, positive academic emotions, and mental health were significantly positively correlated. In contrast, conduct problems were significantly negatively correlated with mental health. School adaptation influenced mental health through the mediation effects of positive academic emotions and conduct problems. These effects contained three paths: the separate mediation effects of positive academic emotions and conduct problems and the chain mediation effect of positive academic emotions and conduct problems.

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A cultural pluralism climate values differences between groups and fosters learning about different cultures. This study investigated the relation between four facets of cultural pluralism climate (learning about multicultural topics, learning about intercultural relations, interest shown by teachers, interest shown by non-immigrant students) and immigrant students' self-esteem, academic self-concept, achievement and perceived discrimination. We furthermore tested whether academic self-concept, self-esteem, and perceived discrimination mediated the relation between the four facets and achievement. Relying on a sample of 700 immigrant students (Mage = 12.62 years; SD = 1.12; 45.4% female) from 87 Austrian secondary school classes, all effects were estimated at two levels (L1, individual student level; L2, classroom level) in multilevel mediation models. It was shown that learning about multicultural topics and intercultural relations, and interest shown by teachers positively predicted academic self-concept and self-esteem at L1. Learning about intercultural relations negatively predicted discrimination at L1. At L2, learning about intercultural relations positively predicted academic self-concept and negatively predicted perceived discrimination. None of the facets predicted achievement at L1 and L2. However, academic self-concept (positively) and self-esteem (negatively) fully mediated the effect of learning about multicultural topics, learning about intercultural relations, and interest shown by teachers on achievement at L1.

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Latin-American immigration has transformed Chilean schools into new multicultural scenarios. Studies about intergroup dynamics among students from different cultural backgrounds and their psychological consequences are still limited in south-south migration contexts. Literature has suggested that intergroup relations influence students' satisfaction with school, and they could be improved by the development of competences to cope with cultural differences. This study aims to verify if cultural self-efficacy and its dimensions mediated the influence of prejudice on satisfaction with school, in a sample composed by N = 690 Chilean and Latin-American immigrant secondary students. Results showed that cultural self-efficacy reduced the effect of prejudice in satisfaction with school, in the cases of both immigrant and Chilean students. The dimensions of cultural self-efficacy in processing information from other cultures and mixing with different others make the difference. Findings' contributions for the understanding of adolescents' intergroup relations and psychosocial interventions at school are discussed.

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This study examined (1) whether self-justifying bullying (i.e., moral disengagement) differs in hypothetical bullying situations of a newcomer peer depending on his or her immigrant status; and (2) whether the respondent's immigration status, age, gender, real life bullying participant role (as bully, assistant, reinforcer, defender, victim or outsider) and moral disengagement proneness moderate the differences in moral disengagement between non-immigrant vs. immigrant victims. Altogether, 342 ten-year olds (54% immigrants) and 292 twelve-year olds (45% immigrants) answered peer-report measures to assess participation in bullying and peer status, and self-report measures to assess moral disengagement proneness and situational moral disengagement related to vignettes in which the target of bullying was a non-immigrant vs an immigrant new classmate. For both non-immigrant and immigrant participants both types of moral disengagement were higher for non-immigrant than immigrant victims in the vignettes independent of the respondents' own immigration status. However, different participant bullying roles predicted the differences in moral disengagement between non-immigrant versus immigrant hypothetical victims among non-immigrant and immigrant students. Results suggest that, besides being a trait dimension, moral disengagement is also influenced by situational characteristics that need to be taken into account in order to prevent and tackle bullying effectively.

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We investigated the relationship between teacher support at school intended to promote students' autonomy and immigrant adolescents' psychological well-being. A structural equation model was tested on 3130 immigrant adolescents who attended a representative sample of 654 Italian high schools. Gender, socioeconomic status, previous school achievement and immigrant generation were included in the analysis as control variables. Results showed that when teachers are perceived as adopting an approach that is supportive of autonomy, immigrant adolescents report significantly higher levels of psychological well-being. Gender appears to be the most relevant background factor, with girls being more at risk than boys as regards mental health. Overall, our findings suggest that interventions of enacted support by teachers at school that aim to foster students' autonomy would be an effective approach for protecting against mental illness in immigrant adolescents.

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Immigrant adolescents are the fastest-growing sector among U.S. youth, but they receive little attention in health literacy research. Immigrant adolescents are a diverse population tasked with mastering new literacies while also navigating new social systems. Many immigrant adolescents serve as important linguistic and cultural resources in their families and local communities, and yet their contributions (and struggles) as new navigators of our health care system remain invisible. In this commentary article, we argue that health literacy researchers need to devote more attention to immigrant adolescents and the pathways by which they learn new language and literacy skills while also developing their own health habits and behaviors. We contend that the study of immigrant adolescents provides a critical window into health literacy as a socially and historically situated practice, specifically how immigrant adolescents' transnational experiences shape their learning of new health literacy practices. With a coordinated interdisciplinary research agenda on immigrant adolescents, the health literacy field will expand its empirical base for what becoming "health literate" looks like in today's globalizing world.

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This work proposes a conceptual model of psychological adjustment of native and immigrant adolescents who live in Spain. Psychological adjustment was expected to mediate between perceived family support and adolescents' school adjustment and problem behaviors. Spanish adolescents (n = 156) and immigrant adolescents (n = 137) filled out a self-report questionnaire regarding their perceived family support, psychological adjustment (i.e., self-esteem and life satisfaction), school adjustment, and problem behaviors. Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) was used to examine the relational patterns among these variables. The specific model -with psychological adjustment mediating between family support and school adjustment (z = 2.70, ß = .21, p = .007 for Spanish adolescents, and z = 2.42, ß = .16, p = .015 for immigrant adolescents), and school adjustment mediating between psychological adjustment and problem behaviors (z = -2.51, ß = -.14, p = .012 for Spanish adolescents, and z = -2.01, ß = -.11, p = .044 for immigrant adolescents) was confirmed for both samples. An implication of this study is the relevance of adolescents' family support to their well-being, and the mediating role of psychological adjustment between family support and school adjustment.

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The study examines psychosomatic symptoms, and host and heritage identities as mediators of the relationship between discrimination and aggressive behavior and substance use. Israeli data from the 2013-14 Health Behaviors of School-aged Children study included a representative sample of 1503 first- and second-generation immigrant adolescents aged 11-17 years (45.2% male) from the Former Soviet Union and Ethiopia in Israel. Structural equation modeling, controlling for age, gender, family affluence and immigrant generation, showed different pathways for the two groups. For FSU-heritage adolescents, the relationship between discrimination and aggressive behavior and substance use was partially mediated by psychosomatic symptoms. Lower host and heritage identities also predicted psychosomatic symptoms. For Ethiopian-heritage adolescents, the relationship between discrimination and outcomes was fully mediated by psychosomatic symptoms and a weaker host identity. Results support an externalizing model, whereby discrimination leads to a weaker host identity and increased psychosomatic symptoms, associated with substance use and aggressive behavior.

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OBJECTIVE: This study examined associations of physical activity (PA) and sedentary behavior (SB) with adolescents' immigration status and language spoken at home and with friends. METHODS: Participants (N = 2475) were included from Wave 1 of the NEXT Generation Health Study, a nationally representative 10th-grade cohort study starting in 2009. PA included recommended moderate-to-vigorous PA (MVPA) and vigorous PA (VPA); SB included screen viewing and social-media use. Linear and logistic regressions were conducted controlling for complex survey variables. RESULTS: Adolescents with non US-born compared with US-born parents were less likely to engage in VPA (odds ratio = 0.60, p ≤ .05, 95% CI = 0.38-0.96). Parent country of origin and language spoken were not significantly associated with recommended MVPA engagement. None of screen viewing and social-media use was significantly associated with immigration status. CONCLUSIONS: Recent immigration status was negatively associated with adolescents' PA documenting an important health disparity.

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The risk of suicide behaviors in immigrant adolescents varies across countries and remains partly understood. We conducted a study in France to examine immigrant adolescents' likelihood of experiencing suicide ideation in the last 12 months (SI) and lifetime suicide attempts (SA) compared with their native counterparts, and the contribution of socioeconomic factors and school, behavior, and health-related difficulties. Questionnaires were completed by 1559 middle-school adolescents from north-eastern France including various risk factors, SI, SA, and their first occurrence over adolescent's life course (except SI). Data were analyzed using logistic regression models for SI and Cox regression models for SA (retaining only school, behavior, and health-related difficulties that started before SA). Immigrant adolescents had a two-time higher risk of SI and SA than their native counterparts. Using nested models, the excess SI risk was highly explained by socioeconomic factors (27%) and additional school, behavior, and health-related difficulties (24%) but remained significant. The excess SA risk was more highly explained by these issues (40% and 85%, respectively) and became non-significant. These findings demonstrate the risk patterns of SI and SA and the prominent confounding roles of socioeconomic factors and school, behavior, and health-related difficulties. They may be provided to policy makers, schools, carers, and various organizations interested in immigrant, adolescent, and suicide-behavior problems.

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Recently arrived immigrant adolescents experience difficulties in adjusting to school in South Korea. However, the existing social services do not meet their psychosocial needs. This study investigates the perspectives of social service providers about challenges in providing services for immigrant adolescents early in their adjustments. We conducted qualitative, in-depth interviews with 27 South Korean social service providers. We identified barriers to social services, categorized into three themes: (1) Initial Contact Phase; (2) Service Delivery Phase; and (3) Structural Challenges. We suggest interventions concerning work-related stress for the social service providers, family-level involvement, diversity training, and integrated and collaborative immigration services. An examination of social service providers' challenges in working with immigrant adolescents is a necessary first step toward the development of programs and policies.

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Callous and Unemotional (C&U) traits characterize a group of adolescents who engage and persist in especially severe antisocial behaviors. These traits have been included in DSM-5 within a "Limited Prosocial Emotions" (LPE) specifier for Conduct Disorder. To investigate the generalizability of this specifier to non-Western cultures, we examined associations among Big Five personality, refugee camp experience, and C&U traits among 81 immigrant adolescents from non-Western cultures. Adolescents with refugee camp history endorsed higher levels of Uncaring than other adolescents. Personality traits explained 6 (Unemotional) to 18 % (Callousness) of the variance in C&U traits. The association between Neuroticism and Callousness held only for adolescents with a refugee camp history. Our results corroborate the importance of considering personality to understand C&U traits and the LPE specifier. Results also raise questions regarding the applicability of C&U traits to non-Western adolescents with varying pre-immigration experiences, and raise the possibility that the LPE specifier is vulnerable to false-positive identifications among such individuals.

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This study examined the relationships between academic motivation-intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation, amotivation-and mathematics achievement among 363 Indian adolescents in India and 355 Indian immigrant adolescents in Canada. Results of hierarchical multiple regression analyses showed that intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation, and amotivation were not statistically significantly related to mathematics achievement among Indian adolescents in India. In contrast, both intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation were statistically significantly related to mathematics achievement among Indian immigrant adolescents in Canada. While intrinsic motivation was a statistically significant positive predictor of mathematics achievement among Indian immigrant adolescents in Canada, extrinsic motivation was a statistically significant negative predictor of mathematics achievement among Indian immigrant adolescents in Canada. Amotivation was not statistically significantly related to mathematics achievement among Indian immigrant adolescents in Canada. Implications of the findings for pedagogy and practice are discussed.

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BACKGROUND: The present study examined the relation between two different acculturation measures (i.e., linguistic acculturation and the acculturation strategies integration, separation and marginalization) and past year cannabis use. Additionally, we studied the mediating role of affiliation with cannabis-using peers. METHOD: Data were utilized from i4culture, a Dutch study on immigrant adolescents and young adults aged 15-24 years. Participants belonged to the five largest immigrant populations in the Netherlands, living in or around the four major Dutch cities: Amsterdam, the Hague, Rotterdam, and Utrecht. In total, 771 adolescents and young adults (mean age 19.29, SD=2.61, 53.8% female) from Surinamese (n=210, 27.2%), Moroccan (n=209, 27.1%), Turkish (n=110, 14.3%), Antillean (n=109, 14.1%), and Asian (n=133, 17.3%) backgrounds participated. With questionnaires, past year cannabis use, acculturation strategy, linguistic acculturation, and affiliation with cannabis-using peers were assessed. RESULTS: Using logistic regression analyses, we found no relation between acculturation strategy and past year cannabis use (OR=1.25, p=0.38 for separation vs integration and OR=0.86, p=0.50 for marginalization vs integration). Linguistic acculturation was positively related to cannabis use (OR=2.20, p<0.01). Affiliation with cannabis-using peers partly mediated this relation (OR=1.09, p<0.01). CONCLUSIONS: Non-Western immigrant youngsters who speak the host culture's language at home are more likely to use cannabis than youngsters who speak their native language at home. The former group is more likely to affiliate with cannabis-using peers, which partly explains their increased risk of cannabis use.

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