School Satisfaction in Immigrant and Chilean Students: The Role of Prejudice and Cultural Self-Efficacy

Abstract

Latin-American immigration has transformed Chilean schools into new multicultural scenarios. Studies about intergroup dynamics among students from different cultural backgrounds and their psychological consequences are still limited in south–south migration contexts. Literature has suggested that intergroup relations influence students’ satisfaction with school, and they could be improved by the development of competences to cope with cultural differences. This study aims to verify if cultural self-efficacy and its dimensions mediated the influence of prejudice on satisfaction with school, in a sample composed by N = 690 Chilean and Latin-American immigrant secondary students. Results showed that cultural self-efficacy reduced the effect of prejudice in satisfaction with school, in the cases of both immigrant and Chilean students. The dimensions of cultural self-efficacy in processing information from other cultures and mixing with different others make the difference. Findings’ contributions for the understanding of adolescents’ intergroup relations and psychosocial interventions at school are discussed.

Adolescentes chilenos ante la inmigración latinoamericana: perfiles aculturativos, prejuicio, autoeficacia cultural y bienestar

“…Por otra parte, se observa una baja percepción de prejuicio afectivo hacia los inmigrantes latinoamericanos por parte de los adolescentes, lo que también ha sido observado en otros estudios con muestras de adolescentes chilenos (Mera-Lemp, Bilbao & Basabe, 2020). En cuanto a la percepción de autoeficacia cultural general, los adolescentes se sienten moderadamente capaces de interactuar exitosamente con miembros de otros grupos culturales.…”

“…En cuanto a la percepción de autoeficacia cultural general, los adolescentes se sienten moderadamente capaces de interactuar exitosamente con miembros de otros grupos culturales. La dimensión de autoeficacia para comprender otros estilos de vida obtiene el puntaje mayor, seguido por la dimensión de autoeficacia para relacionarse con otras culturas, y la dimensión de autoeficacia para procesar información de otras culturas, que obtuvo el menor puntaje, similar a lo observado en otros estudios en adolescentes chilenos (Mera-Lemp, Bilbao & Basabe, 2020). Asimismo, el nivel de bienestar de los participantes es adecuado.…”

The cultural efficacy of elementary school students：scale development and validation

“…Du et al (2015) studied internal Chinese migrants and concluded that increased cultural self-e cacy under a collectivist cultural orientation could effectively reduce depression [32]. Another previous study demonstrated that increasing cultural self-e cacy could reduce prejudice among international students and thus increase school satisfaction [33]. In summary, cultural self-e cacy is a positive emotion that can positively contribute to social adaptation.…”