Feasibility, acceptability, and preliminary findings of a school‐based intervention for recently arrived immigrant middle‐school students

Abstract

The Cultural Adjustment Group is a pilot school-based group intervention for recently arrived immigrant middle school students. This study examined the feasibility, acceptability, and provided preliminary assessment data to guide future intervention research. Seventy (Male, n = 43; Female, n = 27) immigrant students who were Spanish-speaking, Arabic-speaking, and Bangla-speaking (ages 10-16, M = 13.17) from an urban school district in the Northeastern United States participated in this intervention. Pre and postgroup surveys and exit-group interviews were conducted to evaluate the program. The findings demonstrated this intervention has good feasibility and high acceptability by the participants. The Bangla-speaking group reported higher levels of clinical symptoms and perceived discrimination at pretest and reported a clinically significant reduction in clinical symptoms and acculturative stress at posttest. There were no clinically significant changes in the other two groups. The results offer guidance for future implementation of school-based intervention for newcomer students.

Bullying Victimization and Bully Prevention Programs as Predictors of Classroom Peer Support for Immigrant and US-born Students

“…For some students, this 'ownership' of the bullying creates a desire to change for the ability to fit in, rather than to be true to oneself (Side & Johnson, 2014). Nonetheless, school-based group interventions that focus on adjustment and connection between students can help open the doors to talk about and minimize bullying among (Ma et al, 2023).…”

“…In multiple models, school-wide bullying prevention programs as well as bullying prevention in 5 th grade were significant positive predictors of peer support, however school-wide initiatives had a negative effect. For decades the literature has supported these programs and that is why they are common in most public schools today (Birman et al, 2007;Harel-Fisch et al, 2011;Ma et al, 2023;Maynard et al, 2016). Side and Johnson (2014) recommend that a policy on bullying should reflect: 1) the values of the school rather reinforce state legal obligations, 2) the needs and views of the people it is built to protect, 3) that preventing and stopping bullying is the responsibility of the school community as a whole, and 4) that the policy should be written with the influence and insight of young people themselves.…”