The Lonely Social World of Racial- and Ethnic-Minority and Immigrant Youth: Examining Social Isolation of Adolescents From Their Peers, Teachers, and Parents

• In Event: Promising Scholarship in Education: Dissertation Fellows and Their Research

Abstract

Purpose of study
Recent reform in U.S. school systems have focused on closing racial achievement gaps, but despite great efforts, are these children being socially left behind? We know from prior research that adolescents see their relationships with peers, teachers, and parents as defining aspects of their lives. Individuals lacking these important relationships are at greater risk for a number of negative outcomes, such as depression, anxiety, and low self-esteem. For immigrant and minority youth, social relationships, particularly those that occur within the school context, also help expose these groups to ‘mainstream’ norms and social expectations. As one of the few places that immigrant youth can learn about these norms, schools – and interactions with peers and teachers that happen within the context – are expected to provide opportunities for immigrant youth to garner social capital that will help them navigate their surroundings.
We know that social relationships are particularly important in the lives of minority and immigrant youth; however, previous work suggests that these groups may be at greater risk of being socially isolated. Minority youth face racial discrimination in school, and many newcomers to the United States find it especially difficult to adapt to their new surroundings during the unsettled period of adolescence. Parents of immigrant and minority youth are also in less contact with schools and are less familiar with their children’s peers than White, native-born parents. However, little comparative work examines or questions the important role that schools play. Few studies also focus on academic interactions between minority and immigrant parents and their children at home, despite strong racial stereotypes of parenting and educational investment that exist.
My dissertation addresses these relatively understudied areas by investigating how social capital shapes acculturation and academic outcomes among racial/ethnic minority and immigrant youth. I focus on two major social institutions with which all students must interact: schools and family. Using the Education Longitudinal Study of 2002 (ELS:2002), a nationally representative sample of US high school sophomores, I examine patterns in the social relationships young people have with their peers, teachers, and adults. In this project, I extend previous scholarship on the social lives of adolescence in a number of ways. First, my analyses reveal wide-spread patterns of social relationships using a nationally representative sample of US youth. Second, I examine three major types of social interactions in the lives of adolescents: social relationships with peers, teachers, and parents. Third, I will consider patterns of social relationships among racial/ethnic minority and immigrant young people. Fourth, I examine the link between early social relationships and later academic and social outcomes.

Author

• Hua-Yu Sebastian Cherng, New York University