Liu Yan, Maltais Natasha S, Milner-Bolotin Marina, Chachashvili-Bolotin Svetlana
Department of Psychology, Carleton University, Ottawa, ON, Canada.
Department of Curriculum and Pedagogy, The University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada.
Front Psychol. 2024 Aug 9;15:1416631. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1416631. eCollection 2024.
Adolescent psychological wellbeing has been identified as an important public health priority and one of the major challenges facing young people. However, few studies have examined the wellbeing of Canadian adolescents nationwide in the past decade, and even fewer have focused specifically on immigrant adolescents. This study aims to investigate Canadian adolescent psychological wellbeing (PWB) via nationally representative data from the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2018. We explored what social and educational factors were critical in predicting Canadian adolescents' PWB, how adolescents from immigrant families differed from their non-immigrant peers in their wellbeing, and how adolescents' PWB was related to their academic performance.
A total of 22,651 Grade 8 Canadian students who participated PISA 2018 were included in this study (mean age of 15; 49.9% female; 26% immigrant students). Mixed effects modeling was adopted for data analysis.
Our results showed that various social and educational factors were associated with adolescent PWB, but these relationships varied depending on which aspect of PWB was examined. Immigrant adolescents were shown to have higher levels of PWB when student attitudes toward immigrants were more positive. Additionally, most aspects of PWB were important for achievement performance.
It is important to develop healthy and supportive school and disciplinary climates that foster students' sense of belonging. To further support the PWB of immigrant adolescents, educators can implement activities and integrate learning materials on cultural diversity into curricula, encouraging students to develop positive attitudes toward immigrants. Our findings on the PWB of Canadian adolescents could provide valuable insights for other countries with diverse populations, particularly those with significant immigrant communities.
青少年心理健康已被视为一项重要的公共卫生优先事项，也是年轻人面临的主要挑战之一。然而，在过去十年中，很少有研究在全国范围内考察加拿大青少年的心理健康状况，专门关注移民青少年的研究更是少之又少。本研究旨在通过2018年国际学生评估项目（PISA）具有全国代表性的数据，调查加拿大青少年的心理健康状况。我们探讨了哪些社会和教育因素对预测加拿大青少年的心理健康至关重要，移民家庭的青少年在心理健康方面与非移民同龄人有何不同，以及青少年的心理健康与他们的学业成绩有何关系。
本研究纳入了22651名参加2018年PISA的加拿大八年级学生（平均年龄15岁；49.9%为女生；26%为移民学生）。数据分析采用混合效应模型。
我们的结果表明多种社会和教育因素与青少年心理健康相关，但这些关系因所考察的心理健康方面不同而有所差异。当学生对移民的态度更积极时，移民青少年的心理健康水平更高。此外，心理健康的大多数方面对学业成绩都很重要。
营造健康且支持性的学校和纪律氛围以培养学生的归属感很重要。为了进一步支持移民青少年的心理健康，教育工作者可以开展活动，并将关于文化多样性的学习材料纳入课程，鼓励学生对移民形成积极态度。我们关于加拿大青少年心理健康的研究结果可以为其他人口多样化的国家，尤其是那些有大量移民社区的国家提供有价值的见解。
