PsycARTICLES

Abstract. In the context of increasing ethnic diversity in many European countries, a successful development and integration of ethnic minority youth becomes a central concern for the future of Europe. It is particularly important to understand specific challenges and opportunities related to identity development among ethnic minority youth. The aim of this review is to integrate recent findings on identity development among ethnic minority youth in Europe. We identified three crosscutting themes in the literature. The “intensified identity work” approach suggests that ethnic minority youth are more engaged in identity work compared to their mainstream peers. The “diverging identity outcomes” themes represents a discussion on the opposite outcomes of identity development among ethnic minority youth. The “third way or hybrid identity” approach suggests that ethnic minority youth can build on globalization and other cultural resources, as well as on their own developmental flexibility to form novel, adaptive patterns of identity. We discuss the complementarity of the three approaches and suggest directions for further studies with ethnic minority youth. We also show how the findings of this review can help practitioners and policy makers in Europe to support ethnic minority youth in their identity development.

As a basis for theories of psychopathology, clinical psychology and related disciplines need sound taxonomies that are generalizable across diverse populations. To test the generalizability of a statistically derived 8-syndrome taxonomic model for youth psychopathology, confirmatory factor analyses (CFAs) were performed on the Youth Self-Report (T. M. Achenbach & L. A. Rescorla, 2001) completed by 30,243 youths 11-18 years old from 23 societies. The 8-syndrome taxonomic model met criteria for good fit to the data from each society. This was consistent with findings for the parent-completed Child Behavior Checklist (Achenbach & Rescorla, 2001) and the teacher-completed Teacher's Report Form (Achenbach & Rescorla, 2001) from many societies. Separate CFAs by gender and age group supported the 8-syndrome model for boys and girls and for younger and older youths within individual societies. The findings provide initial support for the taxonomic generalizability of the 8-syndrome model across very diverse societies, both genders, and 2 age groups.

In this study, the authors compared ratings of behavioral and emotional problems and positive qualities on the Youth Self-Report (T. M. Achenbach & L. A. Rescorla, 2001) by adolescents in general population samples from 24 countries (N = 27,206). For problem scales, country effect sizes (ESs) ranged from 3% to 9%, whereas those for gender and age ranged from less than 1% to 2%. Scores were significantly higher for girls than for boys on Internalizing Problems and significantly higher for boys than for girls on Externalizing Problems. Bicountry correlations for mean problem item scores averaged .69. For Total Problems, 17 of 24 countries scored within one standard deviation of the overall mean of 35.3. In the 19 countries for which parent ratings were also available, the mean of 20.5 for parent ratings was far lower than the self-report mean of 34.0 in the same 19 countries (d = 2.5). Results indicate considerable consistency across 24 countries in adolescents' self-reported problems but less consistency for positive qualities.