Short-term and long-term effects of a culture-specific self-affirmation intervention to promote school adjustment of adolescents of migrant and refugee backgrounds

该项目的目的是测试简短的自我肯定写作干预是否可以防止在面对与文化相关的压力（如歧视经历）时学业和社会情绪适应能力的下降。我们关注移民和难民背景的青少年，包括土耳其裔、叙利亚裔和奥地利裔（来自前苏联）青少年，以代表近期和已建立的移民群体，他们可能经历不同程度的文化适应相关压力。本研究立足于三个研究领域：异文化压力、自我肯定理论和自我决定理论（SDT），以检验自我肯定写作干预是否能增强移民和难民背景青少年的亲缘感、能力感和自主性，并最终改善其学业和社会情感幸福感。先前的工作集中在自我肯定写作干预如何促进更大的联系感，从而提高学业成绩。在我们的研究中，我们测试了这种干预是否也会增强SDT的其他两个关键方面，自主性和能力，从而导致更积极的学术和社会情绪适应。此外，我们还测试了干预是否对某些群体比其他群体更有效。由于自我肯定写作干预在一个更敏感的过渡时期实施的效果更强，我们预计干预将对新移民（叙利亚遗产）比长期移民（土耳其遗产和Aussiedler）或没有移民背景的德国青年显示出更大的效果。我们的目标是在德国一个文化多元的城市招募600名刚进入中学一年级的青少年（即另一个过渡点）参与这项纵向研究。这是一个重要的机会，让更多新近和更成熟的移民背景的青少年接触到一种干预措施，这种干预措施实施起来很简单，并且已经被证明在缩小美国（多数族裔和少数族裔儿童之间）的成就差距方面取得了成功。研究成果将在上述三个领域的研究成果之外做出重要贡献。研究结果还可以通过确定自我肯定干预工作的其他机制来扩展自我肯定理论。

The purpose of the project is to test whether a brief self-affirmation writing intervention prevents declines in academic and socioemotional adjustment in the face of acculturation-related stress such as experiences of discrimination. We focus on adolescents of migrant and refugee background, including Turkish-heritage, Syrian-heritage, and Aussiedler (from the former Soviet Union) adolescents to represent recent and established migrant groups who may experience different levels of acculturation-related stress. We build on important prior work rooted in three research areas: acculturative stress, self-affirmation theory and self-determination theory (SDT), to test whether a self-affirmation writing intervention can enhance a sense of relatedness, competence, and autonomy, and ultimately improve the academic and socioemotional well-being of adolescents of migrant and refugee background. Prior work has focused on how self-affirmation writing interventions promote a greater sense of relatedness which boosts academic achievement. In our study we test whether this intervention would also enhance the other two key aspects of SDT, autonomy and competence, to lead to more positive academic and socioemotional adjustment. In addition, we test whether the intervention is more effective for some groups compared to others. Because the effects of self-affirmation writing interventions are stronger when administered during a more sensitive transitional period we expect that the intervention will show greater effects for newer (Syrian-heritage) versus longer-term migrants (Turkish-heritage and Aussiedler) or German youth without immigrant background. We aim to recruit 600 adolescents at the beginning of their first year at secondary school (i.e., another point of transition) from a culturally diverse urban city in Germany to participate in this longitudinal study. This is a significant opportunity to expose more recent and more established migrant background adolescents to an intervention that is simple in its implementation and that has already proven successful in reducing the achievement gap (between ethnic majority and ethnic minority children) in the United States. Research findings will make important contributions beyond what has been found in prior research in the three areas listed above. Findings may also extend self-affirmation theory by identifying additional mechanisms by which self-affirmation interventions work.