A Qualitative Analysis of Vietnamese Adolescent Identity Exploration Within and Outside an Ethnic Enclave

Focusing on identity development explorations enables a greater understanding of contexts that affect immigrant adolescents. Utilizing thematic and grounded narrative analysis of 46 journal writings, during a one-month period, from first and second generation Vietnamese adolescents ranging in age from 15 to 18 (26 residents of a culturally and politically active ethnic enclave in Southern California; 20 adolescents living outside the enclave), this study establishes ways in which a focus on social context and exploration processes illuminates the complexity of immigrant adolescents’ identity formation. The two groups shared many similarities, including precipitants to exploration and steps undertaken to explore identity. However, two factors—social and cultural influences and emotional reactions—revealed interesting contrasts distinguishing enclave from non-enclave dwelling Vietnamese adolescents. Data also suggested that immigrant adolescents strive to integrate different domains of identity (ethnicity, gender, career) both with one another and with the historical, social, and cultural contexts they occupy.

Chinese American Adolescents’ Perceptions of the Language Brokering Experience as a Sense of Burden and Sense of Efficacy

Children of immigrants who do translations and who interpret for others using their heritage language and English are known as language brokers. Although prior research suggests that children of immigrants’ perceptions of the language brokering experience vary greatly—from feeling a sense of efficacy to feeling a sense of burden—what remains unanswered in the literature is identification of the antecedents and processes that help to explain the varying psychological experience of language brokers. Using data from a two-wave prospective longitudinal study of 256 Chinese American adolescents, the present study tested potential mechanisms that may be responsible for adolescents’ perceptions of the language brokering experience as a sense or burden or sense of efficacy. The results demonstrate that adolescents’ Chinese orientation sets in motion a family process that is linked to variations in the perceptions of adolescents’ language brokering experience. Adolescents who are more Chinese oriented have a stronger sense of familial obligation, and these adolescents are more likely to perceive that they matter to their parents. Adolescents’ perceived sense of mattering to parents, in turn, is associated positively with a sense efficacy, and negatively with a sense of burden as language brokers. Those adolescents who are less Chinese oriented have a weaker sense of familial obligation, and these adolescents are more likely to feel a sense of alienation from their parents. Adolescents’ sense of perceived alienation from parents, in turn, is associated with a sense of burden as language brokers. Implications for developing interventions for children who act as language brokers for their parents are discussed.

Associations Between Smoking and Extreme Dieting Among Adolescents

This study examined the association between cigarette smoking and dieting behaviors and trends in that association among US adolescents in grades 9–12 between 1999 and 2007. Youth Risk Behavior Survey datasets were analyzed using the multivariable logistic regression method. The sample size of each survey year ranged from 13,554 to 15,273 with girls representing 49–51% of the sample (N = 71,854). About 62% of the entire study participants were whites and 14% were blacks. Prevalence estimates of current smoking and corresponding 95% confidence intervals were computed across four comparison groups formed by gender and body weight. Extreme dieting was an independent predictor of smoking. Extreme dieters showed a higher variability of smoking behavior than their peers. The magnitude of the association between smoking and extreme dieting became smaller in recent years among adolescents but remained unchanged among non-overweight girls over that same time period. When adolescent smoking behavior is examined, the intensity of dieting behavior should be considered within its association with other co-occurring unhealthy behaviors.     

Perceptions of Problem Behavior in Adolescents’ Families: Perceiver,Target, and Family Effects

Considerable research has focused on the reliability and validity of informant reports of family behavior, especially maternal reports of adolescent problem behavior. None of these studies, however, has based their orientation on a theoretical model of interpersonal perception. In this study we used the social relations model (SRM) to examine family members’ reports of each others’ externalizing and internalizing problem behavior. Two parents and two adolescents in 69 families rated each others’ behavior within a round-robin design. SRM analysis showed that within-family perceptions of externalizing and internalizing behaviors are consistently due to three sources of variance; perceiver, target, and family effects. A family/contextual effect on informant reports of problem behavior has not been previously reported.     

Depressive Symptoms and School Burnout During Adolescence: Evidence from Two Cross-lagged Longitudinal Studies

The main purpose of this study was to examine the extent to which middle and late adolescents’ depressive symptoms predict their later school burnout and, in turn, the extent to which school burnout predicts depressive symptoms. Drawing on data gathered at ages 15–19 in two-three-wave longitudinal studies, we investigated cross-lagged paths between school burnout and depressive symptoms. In Study 1 the participants were 15-year-old adolescents (Time 1: N = 611, Time 2: N = 614, Time 3: N = 725) who completed the School Burnout Inventory and depressive symptoms twice during their final term of comprehensive school and once after the transition to upper secondary high school or vocational school. In Study 2 the participants were 17-year-old adolescents whose school burnout and depressive symptoms were measured three times annually (Time 1: N = 474, Time 2: N = 412, Time 3: N = 414) during their 3 years of secondary education. Results of both studies revealed moderate stability for both school burnout and depressive symptoms. They also showed that school burnout more strongly predicted subsequent depressive symptoms later on than vice versa. Lastly, they revealed cumulative cycles between school burnout and depressive symptoms.     

Configurations of Identity Among Sexual Minority Youth: Context,Desire, and Narrative

Youth with same-sex desire undergo a process of narrative engagement as they construct configurations of identity that provide meaning and coherence with available sexual taxonomies. This article presents a theoretical analysis and four case studies centering on the relationship among context, desire, and identity for youth with same-sex desire. Through an interpretive, holistic analysis of the personal narratives of youth, we examine the integration of same-sex desire, behavior, and identity in the general life story and the selective appropriation of elements of “master narratives” of sexual identity development. Narratives were characterized by challenges to integrate desire, behavior, and identity into a configuration that conformed to the received sexual taxonomy. Implications for theory and further research on sexual identity development are discussed.     

Examining Temporal Associations Between School Connectedness and Early Adolescent Adjustment

This study examined (a) the associations between school connectedness and early adolescent adjustment problems over a 1 year period and (b) the equivalence of these associations across gender. Five hundred middle school students (53.4% female), initially in the 6th and 7th grades, participated in the two-wave study. Results from two-group cross-lagged panel analyses were consistent across boys’ and girls’ data. After controlling for baseline levels of adjustment problems, school connectedness predicted lower levels of early adolescent conduct problems 1 year later. Regarding the opposite direction of associations, and even after baseline levels of school connectedness were taken into account, conduct problems predicted lower levels of subsequent school connectedness. There were no cross-lagged associations between depressive symptoms and school connectedness, although elevated levels of baseline depressive symptoms predicted higher levels of subsequent conduct problems. Findings elaborate previous research by demonstrating that early adolescents actively shape the middle school environment.

Autonomy,Belongingness, and Engagement in School as Contributors to Adolescent Psychological Well-Being

Self-determination theory emphasizes the importance of school-based autonomy and belongingness to academic achievement and psychological adjustment, and the theory posits a model in which engagement in school mediates the influence of autonomy and belongingness on these outcomes. To date, this model has only been evaluated on academic outcomes. Utilizing short-term longitudinal data (5-month timeframe) from a set of secondary schools in the rural Midwest (N = 283, M age = 15.3, 51.9% male, 86.2% White), we extend the model to include a measure of positive adjustment (i.e., hope). We also find a direct link between peer-related belongingness (i.e., peer support) and positive adjustment that is not mediated by engagement in school. A reciprocal relationship between academic autonomy, teacher-related belongingness (i.e., teacher support) and engagement in learning is supported, but this reciprocal relationship does not extend to peer-related belongingness. The implications of these findings for secondary schools are discussed.

Early Adolescents’ Social Standing in Peer Groups: Behavioral Correlates of Stability and Change

Sociometric nominations, social cognitive maps, and self-report questionnaires were completed in consecutive years by 327 students (56% girls) followed longitudinally from grade 7 to grade 8 to examine the stability of social standing in peer groups and correlates of changes in social standing. Social preference, perceived popularity, network centrality, and leadership were moderately stable from grade 7 to grade 8. Alcohol use and relational aggression in grade 7 predicted changes in social preference and centrality, respectively, between grade 7 and grade 8, but these effects were moderated by gender and ethnicity. Changes in social standing from grade 7 to grade 8 were unrelated to grade 8 physical aggression, relational aggression, and alcohol use after controlling for the grade 7 corollaries of these behaviors. Results are discussed in terms of their implications for understanding links between social standing and problem behaviors during adolescence.