Towards a Resolution of Ethnic Comparative Research with Minority and Majority Adolescents

Abstract

Developmental contexts are becoming increasingly culturally diverse. Because of changing minority-majority dynamics and an increased awareness of inequities rooted in racially stratified societies, the study of developmental processes in different ethnic groups of adolescents has become a challenge. How can research shift the focus from describing to explaining group differences based on psychological and social mechanisms? How can researchers accurately investigate differences and similarities between groups without running the risk of perpetuating a deficit-oriented perspective? An ethnic comparative perspective, although often criticised (e.g., promotes power imbalance between ethnic groups, encourages ‘otherness’), can complement other research methods to explain immigrant youth’s adjustment in different contexts, identify structural barriers to a positive adaptation and, determine underlying variables (e.g., socioeconomic status, opportunity differentials) that create differences that may otherwise be attributed to culture. This dissertation focuses on comparative approaches with ethnic minority and majority youth and shows how these can be utilised to understand developmental processes in various ethnic groups. I present three alternative ways to do this, together with empirical evidence based on cultural variance between minority (i.e., adolescents themselves or at least one parent born outside Germany; shared experience of belonging to a minority group) and majority (i.e., no migration history in their own or their parents’ generation; shared experience of belonging to a majority group) groups. In the first study, I ‘explain away’ minority–majority differences in developmental trajectories of life satisfaction and academic self-efficacy. This approach is performed with the particular research question of how specific features of the home learning environment (e.g., learning conditions at home and parental involvement) can improve psychological and school adjustment. It also shows that student–teacher communication and family support are important factors that can improve home learning in both groups. As explaining away ethnic disparities may not always be possible, in the second study I compare minority and majority student–teacher dyads by drawing on multicultural education theory and add group–specific predictors. I investigate how students and their classroom teachers perceive the teacher–student relationship quality and which predictors at the student-level and classroom-level explain differences in students’ and teachers’ perceptions. The third study adopts a person-oriented approach, as an opportunity to study youth from different ethnic groups (i.e., ethnic German diaspora adolescents who migrated from the former Soviet Union to Germany, Russian Jews who migrated from the former Soviet Union to Israel, and majority adolescents in Germany) without an ethnic comparative mindset. This study uncovers subgroups of adolescents based on their perceived social support trajectories and identifies developmental and acculturation-related variables as predictors of subgroup membership. I conclude with a debate on the ethnic comparative approach, as well as other approaches (e.g., intersectional research) that may ensure a more comprehensive picture of youth adjustment in highly diverse contexts.