Immigrant Adolescents' Adaptation to a New Context: Ethnic Friendship Homophily and Its Predictors

• DOI: 10.1111/cdep.12072
• Publication Date: 2014-05-03T06:22:42Z
• Authors: Peter F. Titzmann
• Keywords: 3319 Life-span and Life-course Studies; 3204 Developmental and Educational Psychology; 4. Education; 05 social sciences; 0501 psychology and cognitive sciences; 2735 Pediatrics, Perinatology and Child Health; 370 Education; 10. No inequality; 10190 Jacobs Center for Productive Youth Development; 3. Good health

AbstractAlthough interethnic friendships are among the best indicators of social adaptation to a new cultural context, adolescent immigrants form friendships predominantly within their own ethnic community, a phenomenon called friendship homophily. In this article, I focus on the acculturation of immigrant adolescents and on the factors that lead them to form friendships within their group, including acculturation‐related behaviors, mutual attitudes of native and immigrant groups, developmental age‐related considerations, and the context in which these adolescents live. The results present opportunities not only for reducing friendship homophily but also point to the complexity of acculturation research and the need to study side effects of adolescents' adaptation to a new context.