Citation

Keles S, Olseth AR, Idsøe T, Sørlie MA. Scand. J. Psychol. 2018; 59(4): 392-406.

Affiliation

The Norwegian Center for Child Behavioral Development, Oslo, Norway.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2018, Scandinavian Psychological Associations, Publisher John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1111/sjop.12454

PMID

29852055

Abstract

The aim of this study was to explore the longitudinal relation between internalizing symptoms and academic achievement, as two processes of children and youth development, among children in Norway, and whether having an immigrant background moderated this association. Data collected from 4,458 students in Norway in four waves over three years were analyzed with multi-group latent growth curve modeling (LGM).

RESULTS showed that internalizing symptoms level remained unchanged over time both for immigrant and non-immigrant children, while levels of academic achievement increased only for children of immigrants with both parents born outside of Norway. Further analyses supported a reciprocal relation between internalizing symptoms and academic achievement and revealed that the initial level of academic achievement predicted the rate of change in internalizing symptoms over time, but not vice versa. Moreover, immigrant background did not moderate the associations in the model, however, children of immigrants with both parents born abroad initially had lower levels of academic achievement, but showed an increase in academic achievement, compared to their non-immigrant peers as well as to peers with one native-born parent after controlling for gender and their grade at the first observation. The implications for policy and practice were discussed.

© 2018 The Authors. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology published by Scandinavian Psychological Associations and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Language: en

Keywords

Children of immigrants; academic achievement; internalizing symptoms; latent growth modeling; parallel process