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ERIC Number: EJ983499
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2012
Pages: 11
Abstractor: ERIC
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-1533-8916
EISSN: N/A
Available Date: N/A
Competent Youth in a "Disorderly World": Findings from an Eighteen-Nation Study
Seiffge-Krenke, Inge
New Directions for Youth Development, n135 p107-117 Aut 2012
Social changes in all parts of the world, together with an increasing globalization, may have contributed to high levels of school-related stress and worries about the future. This article focuses on these concerns and the coping styles adolescents from eighteen countries use in dealing with them. This is an important yet understudied research area: how adolescents cope with these stressors has a bearing on whether they successfully make the transition to adulthood and assume relevant roles and responsibilities. This article presents the findings of cross-cultural research that demonstrated that the stress perceptions and coping styles of adolescents in different regions of the world shared remarkable similarities, pointing to a convergent developmental context in different countries around the globe. While the clustering of countries might seem counterintuitive and requires much further research, it is interesting that adolescents across long distances share certain features. First, the high coping competencies of adolescents living in a disorderly world were impressive and should be considered as serving a protective function against developing psychopathology. Second, if adolescents from different regions in this study experience similar levels of stressfulness with minor events but differ in their ways of dealing with them, this might represent a trend that young people from different countries, as well as immigrant, ethnic minority, and native youths in one country, might experience similar everyday stressors but react differently due to different cultural scripts. Third, considering prevention and intervention, the manner in which ethnic minority adolescents cope with stress may be different but not necessarily maladaptive. It is likely that withdrawal strategies, which put individuals at risk for psychopathology in Western contexts, are acceptable in other cultures and thus linked with good health outcomes. Fourth, it is important for those who work with youths in a given country to develop culturally relevant intervention approaches. Such approaches should incorporate a special focus on immigrant and ethnic minority youths, for example, by offering alternatives to withdrawal coping. (Contains 1 figure and 23 notes.)
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A
Author Affiliations: N/A