Immigrant adolescents who experience ethnic devaluation are prone to having adjustment difficulties, including school dissatisfaction and low academic performance. However, it is unclear why and under what conditions experiencing ethnic harassment lead to school adjustment difficulties. This lack of understanding limits our ability of developing strategies to reduce negative consequences of ethnic harassment. To address this limitation, we examined the mediating roles of self-esteem and depressive symptoms in the association between ethnic harassment and immigrant youths’ school outcomes, including school satisfaction, perceived academic failure, and cutting classes. We also explored whether youths’ relationship with their teachers or democratic school environment buffer these processes.
The data are part of a longitudinal study on youths’ experiences inside and outside of school and their relationships with their parents, peers, and teachers. The sample included 394 first- and second-generation immigrant youths (50% girls; M = 14.08, SD = .90).
The findings suggested that immigrant youths who experienced ethnic harassment decreased in self-esteem, and so became less satisfied with school, and increased in expectations of academic failure. In addition, youths’ relationship with their teachers and their perception of school democracy moderated these mediation processes. When youths had low positive relationships with their teachers or perceived their school context as less democratic, being exposed to ethnic harassment leaded to a decrease in their self-esteem, and so they reported low school satisfaction and perceived themselves as not being successful in school. Contrary, youths’ self-esteem did not significantly decrease in the face of ethnic harassment when they had supportive relations with teachers or perceived the school as a democratic environment. These findings highlight the importance of understanding the underlying processes and conditions when examining the effects of migration related risk factors in order to reach a more comprehensive understanding of immigrant youths’ school adjustment.