Black immigrant youth: Fair society beliefs and coping strategies

• In Event: 1-075 - Immigrant Youth Development: Their Psychological Well-Being and Educational Outcomes

Integrative Statement

Currently, 12% of Black children in America are immigrants. These newcomers may have difficulties fully integrating into American society due to racial discrimination. Simultaneously, Black immigrant youth are culturally socialized to messages that if they just work hard, they will be successful in America. These conflicting messages may impact Black immigrant youth’s views on how fair America is thereby impacting their coping strategies, such as: planning, emotional or religious. The purpose of this study was to investigate differences in fair society beliefs and coping by generation status. This study focuses on the Black immigrant student subsample (N=52) of a larger public-school New York City wide mixed methods study. The results show that first-generation immigrants were more likely to believe America is fair and were higher in all coping strategies, with the exception of religious coping. Contrary to research on other immigrant groups, second-generation immigrants did not use emotional coping strategies more than first-generation immigrants. Generation status was not a moderator of fair society beliefs and coping strategies. Segmented assimilation is one possible explanation of these results. These findings suggest that further research is needed to investigate more adequate avenues to support this under-researched population.

Authors

• Mishel Bunkley, New York University
  Presenting Author

• Clare Clingain, New York University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Selcuk Sirin, New York University
  Non-Presenting Author