Resilience in multicultural classrooms: School relationships can protect the school adjustment of immigrant, refugee and non-immigrant children.

BACKGROUND: According to the risk and resilience perspective, protective factors can attenuate the effect of risks and challenges on children's adjustment. For immigrant and refugee children, supportive relationships in the new context can be particularly beneficial. We expected that supportive school relationships play a protective role for the school adjustment of first-generation immigrant and refugee and non-immigrant children, by moderating the effect of one acculturative challenge (i.e., school language proficiency). AIMS: We investigated the moderating roles of teacher-child and peer relationship quality on the association between German language proficiency and school adjustment (i.e., school achievement and belongingness) among first-generation immigrant and refugee and non-immigrant children. SAMPLE: We recruited n = 278 fourth grade children (Mage = 10.47, SDage = .55, 53.24% female; 37% first-generation immigrant and refugee children). METHODS: Questionnaires assessed children's reported teacher-child and peer relationship quality and school belongingness. One vocabulary test measured children's German proficiency. School achievement was assessed by their grade point average (GPA) and by a reading comprehension test. To investigate our hypotheses, we performed path analyses. RESULTS: Teacher-child relationship mitigated the effect of German proficiency on children's reading comprehension among all children and on GPA among immigrant and refugee children only. Peer relationship buffered the negative effect of German proficiency on school belongingness. CONCLUSIONS: Teacher-child and peer relationship quality can be beneficial for the school adjustment of both first-generation immigrant and refugee children and non-immigrant children.

Culturally responsive teaching self-efficacy and cultural diversity climate are positively associated with the academic and psychological adjustment of immigrant and nonimmigrant students.

OBJECTIVES: This study investigated the associations between teachers' culturally responsive teaching (CRT) self-efficacy, students' perceptions of classroom cultural diversity climate (CDC), and the academic and psychological adjustment of elementary school students in culturally diverse German classrooms. METHOD: The sample included 41 teachers and 234 fourth grade students (Mage = 10.48, SDage = 0.56, 55% female; 38% first immigrant generation). We conducted multilevel analyses to assess the associations between teachers' CRT self-efficacy, student-perceived CDC (i.e., equal treatment by students and heritage and intercultural learning), and students' school achievement, school belongingness, and life satisfaction. We performed mediation analyses to investigate to what extent student-perceived CDC explains the association between CRT self-efficacy and student outcomes. Additionally, we explored the moderating role of students' immigrant generation in the associations. RESULTS: Teachers' CRT self-efficacy and student-perceived equal treatment were positively related to mathematical competence and German vocabulary. Student-perceived heritage and intercultural learning was positively associated with school belongingness and life satisfaction but negatively with reading comprehension. Equal treatment and heritage and intercultural learning did not mediate the relation between CRT self-efficacy and children's adjustment. Findings did not vary across students' immigrant generation. CONCLUSIONS: Teachers' CRT self-efficacy and CDC positively contribute to students' academic and psychological adjustment, but independently. Both aspects can be beneficial for the adjustment of elementary school children, regardless of their immigrant generation. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Teachers' acculturation in culturally diverse schools - How is the perceived diversity climate linked to intercultural self-efficacy?

While in the school context, acculturation is often studied in relation to students of immigrant descent, the current study applies an acculturation framework to teachers mostly representing the mainstream culture. Specifically, we investigated whether teachers' acculturation attitudes towards their students mediate effects of the perceived cultural diversity climate at school on teachers' intercultural self-efficacy in culturally diverse classrooms. Analyses were based on reports of 186 teachers (14% of immigrant descent; M age = 40.8; SD age = 11.8, 73% female) in 22 culturally diverse secondary schools in Southwest Germany. Path analyses indicated that perceived norms of cultural pluralism, and perceived norms of equality and inclusion are directly and positively associated with facets of intercultural self-efficacy. Moreover, teachers' support for cultural maintenance amongst their students was associated with intercultural self- efficacy, but no mediation was found between climate and intercultural self-efficacy via acculturation attitudes. Implications for teacher training, educational practice and future research on the acculturation and adjustment of teachers in culturally diverse classrooms are discussed.

Disentangling the effects of perceived personal and group ethnic discrimination among secondary school students: The protective role of teacher-student relationship quality and school climate.

Guided by risk and resilience and attachment perspectives, the present study examined whether teacher-student relationship quality and school climate can buffer against the deleterious effects of perceived personal and group ethnic discrimination on psychological and academic domains. We conducted multilevel analyses of seventh graders (40 classrooms; N = 456; 47% female) with different cultural self-identifications in Germany. Partially confirming pre-registered hypotheses, results indicated that high levels of perceived personal discrimination were negatively associated with global self-esteem and emotional school engagement. Contrary to our expectations, neither perceived personal nor group discrimination negatively predicted academic self-concept. In addition, teacher-student relationship quality but not school climate buffered the relationship between both personal and group discrimination and global self-esteem and emotional school engagement such that the association was less negative when relationship quality was high. Taken together, our results underscore the importance of considering the different targets of discrimination (i.e., personal self and own group), and that positive teacher-student relationship can be especially beneficial and empowering for youth who are exposed to ethnic discrimination.