Bi-Cultural Competence and Academic Resilience among Immigrants

Vargas-Reighley examines the relationship among bicultural competence, stress and coping processes, adaptive processes, and academic resilience. Participants were Latina/o and Southeast Asian youth from two high schools in California. The Latina/o group was more likely to experience greater family stress, including greater parental marital dysfunction, more severe stressors, and greater stress ratings. The Southeast Asians were more likely to be of lower socioeconomic status, but more likely to show higher academic goals and achievement. Results indicate that bicultural competence was related to greater self-esteem, social support coping and coping efficacy in the familial stressful situation, and direct action coping and coping efficacy in the academic stressful situation. Bicultural competence does appear to be related to adaptive outcomes.