Immigrant Children Change, Adaptation, and Cultural Transformation

by Chuang, Susan S.; Moreno, Robert P.; Adams, Michele; Baumwell, Lisa; Berry, John W.; Boiger, Michael; Carhill, Avary; Chen, Xinyin; Coltrane, Scott; Cookston, Jeff; Coyne, Lisa W.; Dias, Sandra I.; Este, David; Friesen, Christopher; Han, Eun-Jin; Kuczynsk

• ISBN13: 9780739123904
• ISBN10: 0739123904
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2011-08-11
• Publisher: Lexington Books

Summary

Over the past several decades, the demographic populations of many countries such as Canada as well as the United States have greatly transformed. Most striking is the influx of recent immigrant families into North America. As children lead the way for a "new" North America, this group of children and youth is not a singular homogenous group but rather, a mosaic and diverse ethnic, racial, and cultural group. Thus, our current understanding of "normative development" (covering social, psychological, cognitive, language, academic, and behavioral development), which has been generally based on middle-class Euro-American children, may not necessarily be "optimal" development for all children. Researchers are widely recognizing that the theoretical frameworks and models of child development lack the sociocultural and ethnic sensitivities to the ways in which developmental processes operate in an ecological context. As researchers progress and develop promising forms of methodological innovation to further our understanding of immigrant children, little effort has been placed to collectively organize a group of scholarly work in a coherent manner. Some researchers who examine ethnic minority children tended to have ethnocentric notions of normative development. Thus, some ethnic minority groups are understood within a "deficit model" with a limited scope of topics of interest. Moreover, few researchers have specifically investigated the acculturation process for children and the implications for cultural socialization of children by ethnic group. This book represents a group of leading scholars' cutting-edge research which will not only move our understanding forward but also to open up new possibilities for research, providing innovative methodologies in examining this complex and dynamic group. Immigrant Children: Change, Adaptation, and Cultural Transformation will also take the research lead in guiding our current knowledge of how development is influenced by a variety of sociocultural factors, placing future research in a better position to probe inherent principles of child development. In sum, this book will provide readers with a richer and more comprehensive approach of how researchers, social service providers, and social policymakers can examine children and immigration.

Author Biography

Susan S. Chuang is associate professor in the Department of Family Relations and Applied Nutrition at the University of Guelph, Canada. Robert P. Moreno is associate professor in the Department of Child and Family Studies at Syracuse University.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	p. ix
Changing Lives: Theoretical and Methodological Advances on Immigrant Children and Youth	p. 1
Immigrant Children: Making a New Life	p. 7
A Resilience Framework to Examine Immigrant and Refugee Children and Youth in Canada	p. 27
Social Functioning and Peer Experiences in Immigrant Chinese, Canadian-born Chinese, and European Canadian Children	p. 51
The Achievement/Adjustment Paradox: Understanding the Psychosocial Struggles of Asian American Children and Adolescents	p. 75
Youth Risk Behavior among Mexican-Origin Adolescents: Cross Generational Differences	p. 99
The Acculturation and Adaptation of Second-Generation Immigrant Youth in Toronto and Montreal	p. 125
Service Providers' Perspectives on the Pathways of Adjustment for Newcomer Children and Youth in Canada	p. 149
The Social Relational Perspective on Family Acculturation	p. 171
Psychological Aspects of Immigration among Youth Living in Portugal	p. 193
School Readiness in Latino Immigrant Children in the United States	p. 213
Challenges Facing Immigrant Parents and Their Involvement in their Children's Schooling	p. 271
Acculturation-Related Conflict across Generations in Immigrant Families	p. 255
New Arrivals: Past Advances and Future Directions in Research and Policy	p. 271
Author Index	p. 297
Subject Index	p. 313
About the Editors	p. 317
List of Contributors	p. 319
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