Abstract
Successful adaptation among immigrant youths is a highly important issue for multiple stakeholders in many countries because of its potential long-term significance for the well-being of migrants and the prosperity and social cohesion of the receiving societies. In this article, I examine immigrant-youth adaptation through the lens of a recently developed resilience model. What are the risks that threaten immigrant youths’ adaptation? What are the promotive or protective influences that support their positive adaptation? These questions are addressed using scientific evidence drawn from the Athena Studies of Resilient Adaptation project, a two-cohort, three-wave longitudinal project on immigrant-youth adaptation conducted in Greece, as well as from the international literature. Risks and resources for immigrant youths’ concurrent and long-term adaptation are examined in societal, developmental, and acculturative contexts. The integrative model and related scientific findings may inform public policy, as well as guide future research.
Current trends in globalization are characterized by historically unprecedented increases in the flow of immigrants worldwide. Large numbers of people, often originating from low- to middle-income countries of the Global South, have crossed international borders during the past two decades and have settled in Western, more affluent countries (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, or OECD, 2016). Some are economic immigrants who left their native land in search of a better future, whereas others were forced to migrate in search of safety from conflict, famine, or natural disasters (Masten, Motti-Stefanidi, & Rahl-Brigman, 2019). Currently, in Europe, North America, and Australia, international migrants account for at least 10% of the total population (International Organization for Migration, 2016).
The surge of migrants worldwide has changed the face of receiving societies, overwhelming resources in many countries. Ethnic diversity has become the rule rather than the exception in most Western countries. In Europe, terror attacks have fueled heated public debates over immigration and diversity (Motti-Stefanidi & Salmela-Aro, 2018; Verkuyten, 2018). Nonetheless, the lives and well-being of immigrants are intricately linked to receiving nations, since migrants often stay throughout their lives and over generations. Thus, it is in the best interest of receiving societies, as well as immigrants, to promote the successful adaptation of immigrant populations.
A large proportion of immigrants consist of families and their children. As a result, the number of immigrant children, as a portion of the general population, is growing. In the United States, about 25% of children are first- or second-generation immigrants (Child Trends, 2018). In 2015, roughly 10% of the population of the European Union was composed of migrants, 5% of whom were under 15 years of age (Eurostat, 2019). According to a report of the OECD (2012), the defining test for how well immigrants are integrated into a receiving society is to assess how well their children are doing.
There is great variation in the adjustment of immigrant youths after they get settled (Motti-Stefanidi, 2017). Most immigrant youths adapt well to their new reality, while others falter (García Coll & Marks, 2012), and a few exhibit extreme negative behaviors (Motti-Stefanidi & Salmela-Aro, 2018; Verkuyten, 2018). In this article, I examine immigrant youths’ adaptation from a strengths-based resilience perspective, which focuses on protective factors and positive adaptation. It addresses the question, “Who among immigrant youths adapts well, and why?” Accordingly, the article contains two main sections. In the first, I present an integrative framework for conceptualizing immigrant-youth resilience. In the second, I address the questions of who adapts well among immigrant youths, and why, focusing on immigration-specific challenges and resources, as well as the role of their adaptive history in their adaptation. It should be noted that immigrant youths refers to young people who either migrated themselves (first generation) or were born in the host country to immigrant parents (second generation).
An Integrative Model for Conceptualizing Immigrant-Youth Resilience
To understand the diversity in immigrant-youth adaptation, Motti-Stefanidi and colleagues developed a three-level integrative framework (Motti-Stefanidi, 2018; Motti-Stefanidi, Berry, Chryssochoou, Sam, & Phinney, 2012; Motti-Stefanidi & Masten, 2017). The backbone of this framework is based on Masten’s (2014) resilience-in-development model, which is grounded in developmental-systems theory (Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 2006).
Resilience, which refers to the capacity to adapt to adversity or challenges, is usually inferred from positive patterns of adjustment or development during or following periods of significant risk or adversity that threaten adaptive function, survival, or future development (Masten, 2014). Manifested resilience requires two key judgments: First, the person must have experienced significant adversity, and second, the person must be “doing OK” by some criteria of adjustment, despite the adverse life experience. Resilience researchers seek to account for the observed variation in adaptation to adversity, often identifying factors that mitigate risk (protective effect) or directly promote good adjustment (promotive effect) in the context of adverse experiences.
These concepts concern the adaptation and development of all youths, independently of immigrant status. However, immigrant youths live and grow in the context of at least two interacting cultures in a social environment often replete with prejudice and discrimination (García Coll et al., 1996). Acculturation experiences and discrimination also contribute significantly to their adaptation. Therefore, to account for individual differences in immigrant-youth adaptation, acculturation and social psychological perspectives must be integrated into a developmental-resilience model (Motti-Stefanidi, Berry, et al., 2012).
The integrative model for conceptualizing immigrant youths’ resilience includes three criteria for evaluating the quality of their adaptation (Motti-Stefanidi, 2018; Motti-Stefanidi & Masten, 2017). First, like all youths, immigrant youths are expected to do well with respect to normative age-salient developmental tasks that reflect the expectations and standards of behavior that socialization agents (parents, teachers) hold for young people (Masten, 2014). Examples are performing adequately in school, having close friends, being accepted by peers, and exhibiting positive conduct. However, unlike nonimmigrant youths, they also face immigration-specific acculturative challenges. Thus, the second criterion is based on how well immigrant youths negotiate acculturative tasks and navigate between cultures (Motti-Stefanidi, 2018). Ideally, they need to learn and maintain both ethnic and national cultures, which is linked to better adaptation and well-being (Berry, Phinney, Sam, & Vedder, 2006; Nguyen & Benet-Martinez, 2013). Third, like all youths, they need to exhibit positive psychological well-being and mental health.
To address the questions of who among immigrant youths adapts well, and why, Suárez-Orozco, Motti-Stefanidi, Marks, and Katsiaficas (2018) recently proposed a four-level resilience model (Fig. 1) that is partly based on Motti-Stefanidi, Berry, et al.’s (2012) initial three-level resilience model. These levels of context have profound implications for youths’ adaptation. Starting from the top, the model includes the influence on youths’ adaptation of (a) global forces, which refers to the push-and-pull conditions for migration, such as economic inequalities between countries, war, terrorism, and natural disasters; (b) political and social contexts of reception, which refers to cultural beliefs, social representations, and ideologies, and also to policies and programs that shape resettlement; (c) microsystems, which refers to youths’ proximal contexts and to their interpersonal interactions with family, peers, and teachers in these contexts, affecting both their development and their acculturation; and (d) individual-level attributes, such as personality, self-regulation, and cognition. Influences from each of these levels of context may contribute independently, as well as in interaction with each other, to the diversity in immigrant-youth adaptation. Furthermore, these influences may present opportunities or challenges for immigrant-youth adaptation.
An integrative risk-and-resilience model for understanding the development and adaptation of children and youth of immigrant origin. SES = socioeconomic status. Figure adapted from Suárez-Orozco, Motti-Stefanidi, Marks, and Katsiaficas (2018).
Who Among Immigrant Youths Adapts Well, and Why?
This integrative model for conceptualizing immigrant-youth resilience frames research on the basis of two fundamental questions (Motti-Stefanidi, 2018). First, what are the risks that threaten immigrant youths’ adaptation? Second, what are the promotive or protective influences that support their positive adaptation? To address these questions, I drew scientific evidence from the Athena Studies of Resilient Adaptation (AStRA) project, which was conducted in Greece (Motti-Stefanidi, 2014), as well as from the international literature.
The AStRA project is a large, two-cohort, three-wave longitudinal project on immigrant-youth adaptation. The project was framed on the basis of Motti-Stefanidi, Berry, et al.’s (2012) initial three-level integrative model for conceptualizing immigrant-youth resilience. Participants were more than 2,000 immigrant adolescents and their Greek classmates. They were in the first year of middle school (mean age =12 years) at Wave 1 and were followed through middle school for 3 consecutive years. Longitudinal data on the first cohort were collected before the Greek economic crisis and on the second cohort during the economic crisis.
Risks and resources for immigrant-youth adaptation
The acculturation expectations and preferences of receiving societies are important influences on immigrants’ adaptation. Societies that value cultural diversity and support mutual accommodation among the different ethnic groups have a positive impact on their integration and positive adaptation (Van de Vijver, 2017).
Societal-level influences often have an indirect impact on youths by filtering through their proximal contexts (Motti-Stefanidi, Berry, et al., 2012; Suárez-Orozco et al., 2018). In this section, I examine immigration-specific challenges to and resources for immigrant-youth adaptation stemming from two proximal contexts, namely their schools and peers.
Schools
Schools are a key social context for immigrant youths; they contribute to both their development and their acculturation (Vedder & Motti-Stefanidi, 2016). The school climate, the educational programs schools adopt, and the quality of relationships in the school context reflect to a large extent the attitudes of mainstream society toward the presence of immigrants in the country.
The influence of immigrant status, which is a societal-level variable reflecting the position that young people occupy in society, is instantiated at the level of the school context (García Coll et al., 1996). Is immigrant status a risk factor for youths’ school adjustment and well-being? Extant evidence suggests that it depends on the receiving society, the ethnic group, and the domain of adaptation, among other factors (Bornstein, 2017). Research conducted in North America has revealed a phenomenon called the immigrant paradox, whereby first-generation immigrants are better adapted than later-generation immigrants (García Coll & Marks, 2012). In Europe, this phenomenon is usually not replicated. For example, a meta-analysis of 51 studies conducted in different European countries revealed that immigrant status placed youths at risk for academic adjustment, externalizing problems, and internalizing problems (Dimitrova, Chasiotis, & van de Vijver, 2016).
Results from the AStRA project collected both before and during the Greek economic crisis do not support the immigrant paradox. Findings on precrisis and crisis cohorts reveal that, after analyses controlled for families’ social adversity, immigrant adolescents had significantly worse academic achievement, school engagement, and conduct compared with their nonimmigrant Greek peers. However, immigrant and Greek students did not differ in psychological well-being (Motti-Stefanidi & Asendorpf, 2017; Motti-Stefanidi, Asendorpf, & Masten, 2012; Motti-Stefanidi, Masten, & Asendorpf, 2014).
The results may reflect a lack of recognition by the state and schools that they have become culturally diverse. Greeks have generally negative attitudes toward the presence of immigrants in the country (Pavlopoulos & Motti-Stefanidi, 2017), with 60% of Greek citizens indicating an unfavorable view of immigrants and even more native Greeks holding the view that immigrants do not contribute to the collective well-being of the country (OECD, 2016). Such societal attitudes trickle down through youths’ proximal context and have an impact on their school adjustment. The lack of institutional support addressing the educational needs of immigrant students, the related lower competence of immigrant students in the “academic” language of the host country, and discrimination against them may all play a role in explaining why immigrant status presented risks for school adjustment, over and above the risks associated with low socioeconomic status. Moreover, the unexpected finding that immigrant students did not differ from their counterparts in psychological well-being, despite their worse academic achievement, may signal a detachment from school-related experiences, reflecting self-protection (Eccles & Roeser, 2009; Motti-Stefanidi, Asendorpf, & Masten, 2012).
Peer relations
Peer relations are also an important context for immigrant youths’ development and acculturation (Vedder & Motti-Stefanidi, 2016). For immigrant adolescents, developing positive peer relations is both a developmental and an acculturative task (Motti-Stefanidi, 2018). Like all adolescents, they need to be liked and accepted by their peers independently of the ethnicity of these peers, which is a developmental task. However, they also need to learn how to live with, and comfortably move between, intra- and interethnic peers, which is an acculturative task.
Analyses based on AStRA data focusing on the role of peers for immigrant youths’ development and acculturation revealed that being accepted by Greek peers, but not by immigrant peers, was associated with more positive outcomes in immigrant youths. In cross-lagged analyses that controlled for initial adjustment levels, acceptance by Greek peers (assessed through peer sociometric measures), but not by immigrant peers, predicted fewer symptoms of depression and higher self-esteem over time (Motti-Stefanidi, Pavlopoulos, Mastrotheodoros, & Asendorpf, 2019), as well as lower perceived ethnic discrimination against the self (Reitz, Asendorpf, & Motti-Stefanidi, 2015). The latter finding is particularly important, as perceived ethnic discrimination is linked to a host of negative developmental, acculturative, and mental health outcomes (Marks, Ejesi, McCullough, & García Coll, 2015).
What promotes acceptance by Greek peers? Immigrant youths who reported higher involvement with Greek culture were better accepted by their Greek peers over time, again when analyses controlled for initial adjustment levels (Asendorpf & Motti-Stefanidi, 2017). Similarly, Verkuyten, Thijs, and Sierksma (2014) found that immigrant peers high in involvement in Dutch culture and low in the ethnic culture were liked most by their Dutch counterparts. Indeed, in another AStRA study, Motti-Stefanidi, Pavlopoulos, and Asendorpf (2018) showed that peer acceptance by Greek classmates accounted for the finding that higher involvement with the Greek culture predicted decreases in perceived ethnic discrimination over time. These findings tap Greek youths’ acculturation expectations. Immigrant students high in involvement with the Greek culture have probably learned the norms and standards of the Greek peer group. They know the acceptability of different behaviors and how to behave so as to conform to the group’s norms and to fit in. As a result, they are more accepted by Greek peers.
Immigrant youths’ adaptive history
Adaptation is a dynamic process that is shaped not only by the current interplay between risk and protective processes but also by youths’ history of prior successes and failures in key developmental tasks (Cicchetti & Rogosch, 2002; Masten & Kalstabakken, 2018). This argument has been extended to include, in the case of immigrant youths, their history of prior successes and failures in key acculturative tasks (Motti-Stefanidi & Masten, 2017).
Adaptive functioning with respect to developmental and acculturative tasks is expected to be intricately linked over time (Motti-Stefanidi, 2018). For example, evidence suggests that the acquisition of acculturative tasks may precede, and function as a significant resource for, immigrant youths’ success in developmental tasks (e.g., Reitz, Motti-Stefanidi, & Asendorpf, 2013; Suárez-Orozco, Suárez-Orozco, & Todorova, 2009).
The direction of influence between indices of how well immigrant youths are doing in different domains of adaptation is expected to be reciprocal and probabilistic over time (Masten & Kalstabakken, 2018). For example, a study based on AStRA data, including both immigrant and Greek students, revealed that two developmental tasks—school engagement and academic achievement—informed each other over time (Motti-Stefanidi et al., 2014). However, poor academic achievement seems to drive increases in disengagement more than the other way around. This finding has serious implications in the case of immigrant youths who have both poorer academic achievement and a steeper decrease in school engagement over time compared with their Greek peers. The academic achievement and school engagement of immigrant youths were compared with those of their nonimmigrant peers because both are important harbingers of future adaptation in the host society (see also Motti-Stefanidi, 2018).
To understand the causal adaptation link between different domains, researchers will need to investigate more complex dynamic models that include bidirectional influences and progressive effects within and across domains of adaptation over time (Masten & Kalstabakken, 2018). The term cascade effects refers to situations in which positive (or negative) adaptation in one domain spreads to influence adjustment in one or more other domains over time, altering the course of development (Masten & Cicchetti, 2010). Similarly, we would expect that these cascades may alter the course of immigrant youths’ acculturation. For example, a longitudinal mediation analysis, controlling for prior levels in a given construct, revealed that higher academic achievement among immigrant youths at Wave 1 increased their school engagement at Wave 2, which in turn increased their acculturation to the host culture and decreased their involvement with the ethnic culture at Wave 3 (Motti-Stefanidi, Pavlopoulos, & Asendorpf, 2019). To date, however, cascade and other complex dynamic models have rarely been tested among immigrant-youth samples.
Youths’ prior successes and failures in dealing with developmental and acculturative tasks are expected to influence how they interpret and respond to current challenges (Cicchetti & Rogosch, 2002). For example, immigrant youths who have higher academic achievement and are more popular in their classrooms (Motti-Stefanidi & Asendorpf, 2012) and youths who are better acculturated to the host culture (Motti-Stefanidi et al., 2018) report decreases in ethnic discrimination over time. Perceptions of discrimination against the self have significant negative consequences for immigrant youths’ adaptation (Marks et al., 2015). However, it is not clear whether well-adjusted immigrant students actually experience less discrimination than their better adjusted peers or, instead, interpret their experiences differently.
Conclusions
The integrative model for conceptualizing immigrant-youth resilience does not give precedence to either individual or socioecological influences on immigrant-youth adaptation. Instead, it is argued that immigrant-youth adaptation is shaped by the interplay of processes across multiple levels of influence (Motti-Stefanidi, Berry, et al., 2012; Suárez-Orozco et al., 2018). However, receiving societies do provide opportunities and set the limits of the intergroup context in which immigrant youths are expected to develop and acculturate.
In the Greek school context at the present time, immigrant status is a risk factor for adaptation difficulties. This finding replicates those from many European countries (Dimitrova et al., 2016). However, in this society, which tends to be assimilatory (Pavlopoulos & Motti-Stefanidi, 2017), acquiring characteristics of the Greek culture leads to acceptance by Greek peers, promoting positive developmental and acculturative outcomes among immigrant youths. It would be worth researching whether this finding would hold in other cultural contexts.
Failure in academic achievement appears to jeopardize the school engagement of immigrant youths, but this process also poses risk to the receiving society. Disengaging from school, which is the key acculturative arena representing the receiving society, may lead immigrant youths to personal uncertainty, as well as perceived hostility and injustice, since their road to the future may be blocked. These psychological processes are among the key ingredients of radicalization among immigrant youths (Verkuyten, 2018).
To support the positive adaptation of immigrant youths, it is important for receiving societies and schools to promote intercultural competence in both immigrant and nonimmigrant youths through positive and well-planned intergroup contact (Barrett, 2018). In a highly diverse and globalizing world, being able to engage appropriately, effectively, and respectfully in intercultural interactions and dialogue with people from other cultural backgrounds are invaluable skills promoting the well-being of individuals and societies.
Recommended Reading
Masten, A. S. (2014). (See References). A book that synthesizes current knowledge on resilience in children and adolescents and explores how best to foster it.
Motti-Stefanidi, F. (2018). (See References). An integrative review and discussion of how the interaction of culture, development, and acculturation help explain the diversity in immigrant-youth adaptation.
Suárez-Orozco, C., Motti-Stefanidi, F., Marks, A., & Katsiaficas, D. (2018). (See References). Presents an integrative risk-andresilience developmental-conceptual framework for the adaptation of children and youths of immigrant origin, which is designed to inform practice and future research.
Footnotes
Acknowledgements
This article is based on a keynote address presented at the 25th Biennial Meeting of the International Society for the Study of Behavioural Development held in July, 2018, at Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia. I thank Ann S. Masten for her helpful and constructive comments on the manuscript.
Action Editor
Randall W. Engle served as action editor for this article.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared that there were no conflicts of interest with respect to the authorship or the publication of this article.