Abstract
The aim of this study is to examine emotional school engagement and psychiatric symptoms among 6–9-year-old children with an immigrant background (n = 148) in their first years of school compared to children with a Finnish native background (n = 2430). The analyzed data consisted of emotional school engagement measures completed by children and Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaires completed by both parents and teachers. Children with an immigrant background had lower self-reported emotional school engagement than children with a native background with reference to less courage to talk about their thoughts in the class and more often felt loneliness. Further, they reported that they had more often been bullies and seen bullying in the class. Children with an immigrant background had more emotional symptoms and peer problems reported by parents than children with a native background. However, teachers did not report any significant differences.
Highlights
Recent evidence from the OECD Reviews of Migrant Education shows that immigrant adolescents are at risk of poor school success [1]
Children with an immigrant background had less courage to talk about their thoughts in the class (Disagree p = 0.018, Neither agree or disagree p = 0.011), felt lonely more often (Disagree p = 0.001), had at least one friend in the class less often (Disagree p = 0.046) and they had bullied someone in their class more often (Disagree p = 0.001, Neither agree or disagree p = 0.044)
This study showed that children with an immigrant background had lower self-reported emotional school engagement than native children with respect to classroom atmosphere and sense of belonging
Summary
Recent evidence from the OECD Reviews of Migrant Education shows that immigrant adolescents are at risk of poor school success [1]. Problems relating to poorer school success have their origin already in preadolescent years and it has been shown that weak school engagement and poor mental health early in the school career can predict later similar adverse outcomes [3, 4]. It is important to improve mental health and strengthen the school engagement of immigrant children as early as possible to avoid. One approach is to divide it into emotional, behavioral and cognitive engagement [7, 8]: The emotional engagement describes the extent of children’s positive and negative reactions to school, teacher, and activities. Immigrant adolescents have been shown to have a weaker emotional school engagement compared to natives [9]. For children with an immigrant background, the emotional engagement can be regarded especially crucial considering that children who have positive feelings towards school are likely to succeed better in
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