Immigrant Youth Resilience: Theoretical Considerations, Empirical Developments, and Future Directions

Resilient adaptation among immigrant youth provides the foundation for healthy and productive adult lives. Great diversity is observed in their adaptation. This diversity has been studied during the past decade from different angles and intellectual traditions. However, the results are disconnected. In this paper, first, we present a resilience conceptual model for understanding immigrant youth adaptation. We argue that its concepts and principles allow us to best pull together what is known and discover what is still unknown. Together with narrower topic-specific conceptual models, it can guide the formulation of hypotheses regarding immigrant youth resilience. Second, we examine comparatively, through the lens of this conceptual model, results of a content analysis on the abstracts of studies on individual differences in immigrant youth adaptation, conducted during the past decade in North American and European countries. Finally, we discuss the meaning of acculturation-related terms which are often used in an inconsistent way.