Developmental and acculturation predictors of changes in self-efficacy among new arrived refugee youth in Australia

• In Event: 2-059 - Psychological Well-Being of Refugee Children

Integrative Statement

Introduction: Worldwide, there are more than 22 million refugees according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (2017), larger than the number following World War II. More than half of the world’s refugees are children or adolescents. Most research focusing on refugee transitions has focused on mental health and found that youth experience high rates of mental disorders (Fazel, Reed, Panter-Brick & Stein, 2012). However, given the broad range of postmigration stressors, and acculturation difficulties experienced by young people it is important to understand psychological resources that enable adaptation. One such psychological resource is self-efficacy– “judgements of how well one can execute courses of action required to deal with prospective situations” (Bandura, 1982).

Hypotheses: Given that Bandura has theorized that self-efficacy can vary across efficacy domains, we focus on changes in general and refugee-specific perceptions of self-efficacy in young people over a three-year period. Based on previous studies of newly arrived immigrant youth (Motti-Stefandidi, Asendropf, & Masten, 2012) we hypothesize that self-efficacy beliefs will increase over time and that changes in general and specific self-efficacy to be only moderately correlated over time. Based on other studies of the adaptation of immigrant youth (Titzman & Jugert, 2017) we hypothesize that improved English language skills and increases in social support are related to improved self-efficacy. Conversely we expect that increases in the experience of discrimination is related to reduced self-efficacy.

Study population: The analysis is based on the Building a New Life in Australia (BNLA) study, a longitudinal population-based cohort study of refugees recruited at the time of being granted permanent humanitarian visa status. The initial wave of data collection occurred between October, 2013 and February, 2014. Our analytical sample consists of young people age 14-24 years (n = 397) who were granted a permanent humanitarian visa (83% had arrived in Australia less than 6 months from wave 1). We used data from the first two waves that collected self-efficacy (wave 1 and wave 3, two years later).

Methods: First we test whether language skills, social support and discrimination are associated with general and refugee specific self-efficacy at wave 1. Second, to model change in general and refugee specific self-efficacy over time we estimated fixed effect regressions adjusting for demographic covariates (time in Australia and age) and to test whether changes in language skills, social support and discrimination over time are associated with changes in self-efficacy.

Results: At wave 1 age, time since arrival, greater language skills and greater levels of community support were associated with greater refugee self-efficacy. However, at wave 1 only higher language skills was associated with higher levels of general self-efficacy. Fixed effect regressions suggest improvements in language skills were associated with improvements in general and refugee specific self-efficacy. Changes in social support and discrimination were not associated with either self-efficacy variables. Further analyses and discussion will center around the capacity of English language training to support psychological strengths which is particularly significant given that 100 hours of English language training offered free to all refugees in Australia.

Authors

• Ben Edwards, Australian National University
  Presenting Author

• Pilar Rioseco, Australian Institute of Family Studies
  Non-Presenting Author