Introduction to a special section on Explaining Positive Adaptation of Immigrant and Minority Youth across Cultures

Abstract

This special section on "Explaining Positive Adaptation of Immigrant and Minority Youth across Cultures" is the result of an expert meeting organized by the Society for Research in Child Development (SRCD), the European Association of Developmental Psychology (EADP), and the European Association for Research on Adolescence (EARA). The aim of this special section was to bring together empirical studies and expert commentaries on a pressing topic of global importance, and to explore intersections between the fields of acculturation and positive youth development. From these contributions, several major challenges were identified. These included the need for greater attention to the strengths and adaptation of immigrant adolescents (i.e., to include a positive youth development framework in acculturation research and theory), the differentiation and intersections between acculturative processes and normative developmental challenges, the evolution acculturation theory, the need to better understand contact between multiple groups, the consideration of context-dependency and dynamic nature of acculturative processes.In September 2015, a group of immigration and human development experts met on the Island of Hydra, Greece. The meeting was organized on behalf of Society for Research in Child Development (SRCD) International Affairs Committee and the Society for Research in Child Development (SRCD) Racial and Ethnic Issues Committee in collaboration with the European Association of Developmental Psychology (EADP) and the European Association for Research on Adolescence (EARA). The idea behind the meeting was to bring together experts in the fields of immigration research and human development and to discuss emerging challenges and opportunities associated with the growing cultural diversity and migration streams in societies across the globe. One product of the meeting was a mission statement that the group published (Coll et al., 2015). This mission statement summarizes and highlights for a diversity of stakeholders major internationally confirmed empirical findings about the conditions that support the positive psychosocial adaptation of immigrant youth, but also provided recommendations for societal, structural supports that can foster the adaptation of immigrant youth and their families. The statement was designed primarily to raise awareness among the wider public, as the content of the mission statement is mostly widely shared knowledge among scientists working in this area. However, the discussions in the meeting also revealed several less well-addressed topics that clearly deserved more research attention. A second result of the meeting was, hence, the creation of this special section aiming at communicating research gaps, theoretical blind spots, and new developments in the fields of immigration and youth development research, this time our focus was on a scientific audience. We hoped that by communicating criticisms and novel ideas we would inspire new innovative research and that this would result in an even ...

Positive Youth Development Across Cultures: Introduction to the Special Issue

“…The rise in scope and significance of PYD has led to an increased attention and related work in the fields of developmental, educational, and acculturation psychology. Such considerable expansion has witnessed similar special sections adopting a PYD framework in Child Development focusing on PYD in diverse and global contexts (Leman et al 2017), Child Development's Perspectives on minority children (Cabrera et al 2012), and Journal of Adolescence's Positive adaptation of immigrant and minority youth (Titzmann et al 2018). These scholarly contributions inform PYD research, intervention, global and local policy by enhancing optimal well-being, thriving and success among marginalized and culturally diverse youth.…”