Native Adolescents Research Articles

Aboriginal Students’ Perspectives on the Factors Influencing High School Completion

The Canadian education system is failing its Aboriginal students as evidenced by the significant proportion not completing high school. The Aboriginal population has experienced a significantly greater proportion of people living in poverty and higher rates of unemployment than has the non-Aboriginal population. These factors can be linked to the Aboriginal population's lower educational attainment. The research questions in this phenomenological study explored the influences that encourage Aboriginal middle-level students to remain engaged in school, thus promoting the likelihood of their completing high school. Data were collected through semistructured interviews with 10 Aboriginal adolescents identified as being at risk of dropping out before completing high school. Data were analyzed using semiotic phenomenology, including description, reduction, and interpretation. Study findings identified the importance of schools providing linkages to students’ Aboriginal heritages and relationship building between teachers and students. This study adds the students’ perspective to the existing body of knowledge related to Aboriginal student school engagement. Positive social change can be effected when classrooms model cultural inclusion, meaningful learning opportunities are provided for all students, and Aboriginal learners perceive they belong, resulting in a greater proportion of Aboriginal people living enriched, satisfying lives. Such activities also can lead to higher graduation rates.

Differences in weight status and energy‐balance related behaviours according to ethnic background among adolescents in seven countries in Europe: the ENERGY‐project

The aim of this study was to explore differences in weight status and energy balance behaviours according to ethnic background among adolescents across Europe. A school-based survey among 10-12-year-old adolescents was conducted in seven European countries. Weight, height and waist circumference were measured; engagement in physical activity, sedentary and dietary behaviour, and sleep duration was assessed by child and parent-report. A distinction between native and non-native ethnic background was based on language spoken at home, and the parents' country of birth. Analyses were conducted with and without adjustment for parental education. With valid data on both indicators of ethnic background for 5149 adolescents, 7307 adolescents (52% girls; 11.6 ± 0.7 years) participated. Significantly higher prevalence of overweight, obesity, body mass index and waist circumference were observed among non-native compared with native adolescents. Non-native adolescents had less favourable behavioural patterns (sugary drinks, breakfast skipping, sport, TV and computer time, hours of sleep) with the exception of active transport to school. Similar patterns were observed for both indicators of ethnicity, and in most of the separate countries; however, in Greece, weight status indicators were better among non-native adolescents. After adjustment for parental education, most differences remained significant according to country of origin of the parents, but not according to language spoken at home. Adolescents of native ethnicity of the country of residence have, in general, more favourable weight status indicators and energy balance-related behaviours than adolescents of non-native ethnicity across Europe.

Multicultural Mastery Scale for Youth: Multidimensional assessment of culturally mediated coping strategies.

Self-mastery refers to problem-focused coping facilitated through personal agency. Communal mastery describes problem solving through an interwoven social network. This study investigates an adaptation of self- and communal mastery measures for youth. Given the important distinction between family and peers in the lives of youth, these adaptation efforts produced Mastery-Family and Mastery-Friends subscales, along with a Mastery-Self subscale. We tested these measures for psychometric properties and internal structure with 284 predominately Yup'ik Eskimo Alaska Native adolescents (12- to 18-year-olds) from rural, remote communities-a non-Western culturally distinct group hypothesized to display higher levels of collectivism and communal mastery. Results demonstrate a subset of items adapted for youth function satisfactorily, a 3-response alternative format provided meaningful information, and the subscale's underlying structure is best described through 3 distinct first-order factors organized under 1 higher order mastery factor.

Growing Up in Central Australia: New Anthropological Studies in Aboriginal Childhood and Adolescence. UteEickelkamp. New York: Berghahn Books. 2011. xi + 298 pp.

EthosVolume 40, Issue 2 p. 1-3 Book Review Growing Up in Central Australia: New Anthropological Studies in Aboriginal Childhood and Adolescence. Ute Eickelkamp. New York: Berghahn Books. 2011. xi + 298 pp. Robert G. (Jerry) Schwab, Robert G. (Jerry) Schwab Assistant ProfessorSearch for more papers by this author Robert G. (Jerry) Schwab, Robert G. (Jerry) Schwab Assistant ProfessorSearch for more papers by this author First published: 03 May 2012 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1548-1352.2012.01250.xAboutPDF ToolsExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat No abstract is available for this article. Volume40, Issue2June 2012Pages 1-3 RelatedInformation

Ethnic Differences in Risk Factors For Suicide Among American High School Students, 2009: The Vulnerability of Multiracial and Pacific Islander Adolescents

This study compared self-reported risk factors for suicide among American high school students in the last decade. Data from the 1999–2009 Youth Risk Behavior Surveys was analyzed by 8 self-reported ethnicity groups across 6 suicide-related items: depression, suicide ideation, suicide planning, suicide attempts, and suicide attempts requiring medical attention). Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander adolescents had the higher prevalence of risk factors for suicide. Multiracial adolescents were also at high risk for suicide-related behaviors, with a risk comparable to American Indian/Alaska Native adolescents. Overall, Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander, multiracial, and American Indian/Alaska Native adolescents reported a significantly higher risk for suicide-related behaviors compared to their Asian, Black, Hispanic, and White peers. The ethnic disparities in risk factors for suicide dictate a need to understand the vulnerability of the Pacific Islander, American Indian, and growing multiracial adolescent populations, in an effort to develop and implement suicide prevention strategies.

Growing Up in Central Australia: New Anthropological Studies of Aboriginal Childhood and Adolescence

Growing Up in Central Australia: New Anthropological Studies of Aboriginal Childhood and Adolescence

Pulling for Native communities: Alan Marlatt and the Journeys of the Circle

Alan Marlatt was an innovator and a champion of substance abuse prevention and treatment in Native American communities. He was the principal investigator of a National Institutes of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism funded study called the Journeys of the Circle project. Journeys of the Circle was a collaboration between the University of Washington and the Seattle Indian Health Board and resulted in the Canoe Journey – Life's Journey prevention curriculum for Native adolescents. The purpose of Canoe Journey – Life's Journey is to learn life skills using cultural beliefs and practices. The curriculum uses the metaphor of going on a Canoe Journey to teach communication, problem solving, decision-making, and coping skills. It is widely recognized as a promising practice and has been implemented in numerous tribal communities in the United States and Canada. Alan's impact on Native communities extends far beyond Canoe Journey – Life's Journey. Relapse prevention is an integral part of most treatment programs and harm reduction strategies are becoming increasingly more common in Native communities. Alan's passing is a profound loss but his teachings will continue.

Ethnic differences in utilization of youth mental health care

Objectives. There is an overall underutilization of youth mental health care (YMHC). It is unknown whether underutilization differs per ethnic group. Therefore, this study is aimed at gaining insight into the effects of ethnicity, age and gender on this utilization. Design. The sample consisted of outpatient children (age 5–10) (n=1940) and adolescents (age 11–19) (n=2484) admitted to a Dutch YMHC centre. Ethnic background of the patients (patient registration system) was compared to that of the general population (municipality files). Relative risks (RRs) on utilization for non-native groups were calculated with natives as the reference group. Results. With regard to children, female children from Moroccan, Turkish and other non-native western descent were less likely to enter mental health care than native Dutch female children. The RR was 0.24 for Moroccan girls, 0.53 for Turkish girls, and 0.60 for girls from other non-native western countries. Male children from almost all non-native groups were also less likely to enter mental health care than native Dutch male children, with the RRs being between 0.43 and 0.65. With regard to adolescents, most non-native adolescents, were as likely as native adolescents to enter mental health care. An exception were males and females from Morocco and males from Turkey and non-native western countries, who were less likely than Dutch adolescents to enter mental health care (RRs between 0.61 and 0.80). Conclusion and discussion. Results imply that YMHC is less accessible for children from a minority background than for children from a native background. With adolescents, there is no difference in accessibility between natives and non-natives. Future research should focus on the reasons for this difference in accessibility. Potential mediators such as socioeconomic status, discrimination, acculturation processes, language barriers should be taken into account.

Ethnic Identity and Ethnicity-Related Stress in Accompanied and Unaccompanied Adolescent Immigrants: Does the Family Work as Social Capital for Adolescent Immigrants?

This study assesses the ethnic identity and ethnicity-related stress for adolescent immigrants accompanied by their families, for unaccompanied adolescent immigrants and for native (German) adolescents. Seventy adolescents completed the Ethnic Group Membership Questionnaire and the Perceived Ethnic Discrimination Questionnaire. Results show that unaccompanied adolescent immigrants (n = 20) report more negative private feelings about their own ethnic identity, lower beliefs about the public’s regard for their ethnic group and more ethnicity-related stress in the dimensions “perceived ethnic discrimination”, “stereotype confirmation concern” and “own-group conformity pressure” than accompanied adolescent immigrants (n = 25) and German adolescents (n = 25). Accompanied adolescent immigrants revealed higher scores than German adolescents only in the dimension “perceived ethnic discrimination”. Results support the hypothesis derived from the theory of social capital that for the accompanied adolescent immigrants, the family works as social capital, reduces ethnicity-related stress, and promotes the development of a positive ethnic identity.

The Brief Family Relationship Scale

The Relationship dimension of the Family Environment Scale, which consists of the Cohesion, Expressiveness, and Conflict subscales, measures a person’s perception of the quality of his or her family relationship functioning. This study investigates an adaptation of the Relationship dimension of the Family Environment Scale for Alaska Native youth. The authors tested the adapted measure, the Brief Family Relationship Scale, for psychometric properties and internal structure with 284 12- to 18-year-old predominately Yup’ik Eskimo Alaska Native adolescents from rural, remote communities. This non-Western cultural group is hypothesized to display higher levels of collectivism traditionally organized around an extended kinship family structure. Results demonstrate a subset of the adapted items function satisfactorily, a three-response alternative format provided meaningful information, and the subscale’s underlying structure is best described through three distinct first-order factors, organized under one higher order factor. Convergent and discriminant validity of the Brief Family Relationship Scale was assessed through correlational analysis.

Psychosocial Correlates of Condom Use and their Relationship with Worry about STI and HIV in Native and Immigrant Adolescents in Spain

The goal of this study was to analyze how worry about sexually-transmitted infections (STI) and HIV influences attitudes and self-efficacy towards condom use, HIV-related knowledge, HIV-perceived susceptibility and HIV-misconceptions in a multicultural sample in Spain. The sample was composed of 3,051 adolescents aged between 14 and 19 years old who lived in Spain. Of these, 67.7% were native Spaniards and the remaining 32.3% were Latin American immigrants. Results showed that worry about STI and HIV has a direct influence on condom use self-efficacy and HIV-knowledge and HIV-perceived susceptibility. Native Spanish adolescents showed higher positive attitudes towards condom use, greater HIV-knowledge and HIV-perceived susceptibility, and lower negative attitudes towards condoms use and HIV-misconceptions than Latin American adolescents. In the discussion, the importance of worry about STI and HIV is highlighted as a mediator variable that can predict risky sexual behavior and is related to cultural origin.

Growing Up Too Soon? Parentification Among Immigrant and Native Adolescents in Germany

Parentification (adolescents' adoption of adult family roles by providing instrumental or emotional support for their parents) is assumed to be higher in immigrant than native families. An often discussed reason for parentification is the adolescent-parent acculturation gap in immigrant families whereby immigrant adolescents acculturate faster and outperform their parents socio-culturally. The aim of this multi-informant, multi-group study was to investigate levels, predictors, and psychosocial outcomes of instrumental and emotional parentification. The sample comprised 197 native (adolescents: mean age 14.7 years, 52% female) and 185 ethnic German immigrant (adolescents: mean age 15.7 years, 60% female) mother-adolescent dyads. Results revealed higher levels of emotional and instrumental parentification among immigrant adolescents. Parents' partnership dissatisfaction predicted instrumental and emotional parentification only in the native German sample. Among immigrants, language brokering related to instrumental and emotional parentification, and a larger mother-adolescent acculturation gap was associated with higher levels of emotional parentification. The positive psychosocial outcome, self-efficacy, was predicted by instrumental parentification in both adolescent groups. Exhaustion, the negative outcome, however, was related to higher levels of instrumental and lower levels of emotional parentification only in the immigrant group. The results of this study highlight that family systems can change due to migration to another country, with adolescents becoming more responsible for family matters than is normative for their age. However, only some of these premature responsibilities carry a risk of maladaptation, with others seeming to provide opportunities for positive developmental growth.

Depressive symptoms in native and immigrant adolescents: the role of critical life events and daily hassles

The present study compared native Austrian, first and second generation immigrant adolescents regarding their level of depressive symptoms, critical live events, and daily hassles. Furthermore, the associations between these constructs were tested in the three groups. The sample comprised 330 native Austrian (52.1% girls), 120 first generation immigrants (49.2% girls and 159 second generation immigrants (54.2% girls) aged 14–19 (M=15.61). Compared with native adolescents, first generation immigrant adolescents reported more depressive symptoms and daily hassles related to parents, the self, leisure, romantic partner, and future, whilst second generation immigrant adolescents reported more daily hassles related to parents, school, and romantic partner. Controlling for gender, multiple group structural equation models revealed that daily hassles fully mediated the path between critical live events and depressive symptoms in all three groups of adolescents. Implications for future research on immigrant adolescents’ psychological well-being are discussed.

Psychological Adaptation of Adolescent Immigrants From the Former Soviet Union in Germany

Stress-and-coping frameworks predict increasing psychological adaptation of immigrants over time, but although previous studies found evidence for this assumption in adult samples, this temporal pattern was hardly found among adolescent immigrants. The authors argue that in adolescent immigrants an acculturation-related increase in psychological adaptation over time might be counterbalanced by an age-typical decrease in indicators of psychological adaptation. This longitudinal study, covering a 3-year period in mid-adolescence, compared change in depressed mood as an indicator of psychological adaptation in three matched samples of 101 newcomer adolescent immigrants, 101 more experienced adolescent immigrants, and 101 native adolescents. Results showed that native adolescents and experienced adolescent immigrants increased in depressed mood, as is typical for this age group, over the 3-year period. Newcomer adolescent immigrants, however, remained stable, reporting more depressed mood initially than the more experienced immigrants. Moreover, the extent of depressed mood reported by newcomer and more experienced adolescent immigrants converged over time. This pattern of results indicates that both age-typical development and acculturation need to be considered when drawing conclusions on change in psychological adaptation over time in immigrant populations.

Prevalence and management of vitamin D deficiency in aboriginal children and adolescents in western Australia

Prevalence and management of vitamin D deficiency in aboriginal children and adolescents in western Australia

Dutch Adolescents’ Tolerance of Practices by Muslim Actors

This research, conducted in the Netherlands, examines whether native adolescents’ tolerance of practices by Muslim immigrants (e.g., the founding of Islamic schools) is affected by the type of considerations (e.g., educational freedom vs. integration of Muslims in Dutch society). Using an experimental questionnaire design ( N = 970), the findings show that adolescents (13-17 years) became less tolerant when considerations against these practices were presented, whereas tolerance was not affected by considerations in favor of the practices. In addition, the level of tolerance of adolescents who strongly identified as Dutch was not affected by the different considerations, but lower identifiers were less tolerant when considerations against the practices were given. The effects of the different considerations did not differ for age and for educational level. The implications of this research for improving adolescent’s tolerance of practices by Muslim actors are discussed.

Tobacco Use Among American Indian or Alaska Native Middle- and High-School Students in the United States

An estimated 0.5 million American Indian or Alaska Native (AI/AN) adolescents under the age of 18 years smoked cigarettes during their entire lifetime. Using a national sample of AI/AN middle- and high-school students, this study examines prevalence rates and relative impacts of individual, familial, and social predictors of different types of tobacco use. A national sample of 305 (weighted N = 142,989) AI/AN middle- and high-school students in Grades 6 through 12 were selected from the 2006 National Youth Tobacco Survey. During their entire life, most of the respondents used cigarettes (54%), followed by cigars (24%), smokeless tobacco (16%), pipes (13%), and menthol cigarettes (12%). One in 3 (32%) used 2 or more forms of tobacco. High-school students reported significantly higher for all types of tobacco use than middle-school students, while the rates did not differ by gender. Multivariate analyses showed that age, family members' smoking, and refusal to smoke predicted tobacco users with one product. Family members' smoking and refusal to smoke remained significant in predicting more than 2 forms of tobacco use (polytobacco users), while age was no longer significant. School truancy and receptivity to tobacco marketing uniquely predicted polytobacco users. Findings underscore that tobacco control programs for AI/AN students need to address the multiple predictors of different types of tobacco use. Implications of the findings are discussed.

Hopelessness and Excessive Drinking among Aboriginal Adolescents: The Mediating Roles of Depressive Symptoms and Drinking to Cope.

Canadian Aboriginal youth show high rates of excessive drinking, hopelessness, and depressive symptoms. We propose that Aboriginal adolescents with higher levels of hopelessness are more susceptible to depressive symptoms, which in turn predispose them to drinking to cope—which ultimately puts them at risk for excessive drinking. Adolescent drinkers (n = 551; 52% boys; mean age = 15.9 years) from 10 Canadian schools completed a survey consisting of the substance use risk profile scale (hopelessness), the brief symptom inventory (depressive symptoms), the drinking motives questionnaire—revised (drinking to cope), and quantity, frequency, and binge measures of excessive drinking. Structural equation modeling demonstrated the excellent fit of a model linking hopelessness to excessive drinking indirectly via depressive symptoms and drinking to cope. Bootstrapping indicated that this indirect effect was significant. Both depressive symptoms and drinking to cope should be intervention targets to prevent/decrease excessive drinking among Aboriginal youth high in hopelessness.

Promoting healing and restoring trust: policy recommendations for improving behavioral health care for American Indian/Alaska Native adolescents.

American Indian/Alaska Native youth represent the strength and continued survival of many Nations and Tribes. However, they currently experience numerous health disparities and challenges, including the highest rate of suicide among 15-24year-olds in the United States. Our comprehensive review of the literature on the mental health of AI/AN youth highlighted seven focal causes of behavioral health disparities: (1) high levels of violence and trauma exposure and traumatic loss, (2) past and current oppression, racism, and discrimination, (3) underfunded systems of care, (4) disregard for effective indigenous practices in service provision, policy, and funding, (5) overreliance on evidence-based practices, (6) lack of cultural competence among systems of care and providers, and (7) barriers to care. Seven policy recommendations that recognize the importance of moving beyond exclusive reliance on western models of care and that seek to foster transformation of individuals, families, communities, behavioral health service systems of care, and social structures are presented, supported, and discussed.

Children and Youth in Aboriginal Australia: An Overview of the Literature

The following overview of the existing literature relating to Aboriginal childhood and adolescence across Australia is intended to support the development of this potentially strong interdisciplinary research field. It presents a select number of works in historical context, concluding with critical comments and supplemented by additional references presented according to type of study. No claim is made to have covered the literature exhaustively.