ABSTRACT
A diverse ethnic context and an increasing immigrant youth population will soon become the reality across the entire U.S. demographic landscape. Research has suggested that a multicultural context positively influences ethnic minority and immigrant youth by fostering ethnic identity and psychosocial development. However, it is unknown whether and how perceived multiculturalism can affect positive youth outcomes such as life satisfaction and subjective happiness. This study explored perceived school multiculturalism among 338 ethnic minority and immigrant youth, and found a positive relation between perceived school multiculturalism and subjective happiness with full mediation by ethnocultural empathy for African Americans, Asians, males, and females. Although school multiculturalism was also predictive of ethnocultural empathy for Hispanics, ethnocultural empathy in turn, was not significantly predictive of subjective happiness. Taken together, these results suggest that one way to facilitate psychological growth and flourishing among ethnic minority youth is to encourage multiculturalism in school settings.
Subject(s)
Cultural Diversity , Emigrants and Immigrants/psychology , Ethnicity/ethnology , Ethnicity/psychology , Happiness , Minority Groups/psychology , Social Identification , Achievement , Adaptation, Psychological , Adolescent , Black or African American/ethnology , Black or African American/psychology , Asian/ethnology , Asian/psychology , Child , Empathy , Female , Hispanic or Latino/ethnology , Hispanic or Latino/psychology , Humans , Male , Models, Psychological , Personal Satisfaction , Prejudice , SchoolsABSTRACT
In this study of 329 Cambodian, Chinese, Laotian/Mien, and Vietnamese youth in Oakland, California, acculturation factors of individualism-collectivism and acculturative dissonance were examined as risk and protective factors for substance use. Results of structural equation modeling and bootstrapping revealed that peer substance use was a robust mediator between individualism and youth's self-reported substance use, particularly among Vietnamese and males. Peer substance use also significantly mediated the relation between collectivism and substance use for females. As such, there appears to be ethnic and gender group variations in the saliency of cultural/acculturation factors with respect to substance use. Implications for substance use prevention programs for ethnic and immigrant youth are discussed.
Subject(s)
Acculturation , Asian , Substance-Related Disorders/ethnology , Adolescent , California/epidemiology , Child , Female , Humans , Interviews as Topic , Male , Substance-Related Disorders/epidemiologyABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: There is a paucity of research addressing victimization among Asian and Southeast Asian youth. METHODS: A community-based sample of 329 Chinese, Cambodian, Lao/Mien, and Vietnamese youth were interviewed in a face-to-face format. Non-familial physical and emotional victimization were explored in relation to risk factors. RESULTS: Results revealed that reporting of violent physical victimization was generally greater among males than females, and greater among females than males for emotional victimization. Southeast Asian youth were more likely to experience victimization than Chinese youth. Violent offending, drug use, and delinquent peer affiliation significantly increased the odds of physical victimization, whereas more distal influences such as neighborhood exerted less influence. For emotional victimization, self-esteem and dating abuse was most salient. DISCUSSION: Study highlighted the need to consider victimization disaggregated by ethnicities as well as cultural factors that have thus far been eclipsed in most empirical studies of youth victimization.
