More insight into the secret life of the American teen

Semel Web Manager — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 15:20:00 +0000

Andrew Fuligni and his colleagues want to understand the secret life of the American teenager. Their research has examined whether stress in the teen years affects kids' health as adults (it does), whether teens maintain their religious ties and beliefs as adults (they do) and if ethnic minority–based stigmatization affects how they perform in school (it does). Now the researchers are looking at another big-ticket item for teens: arguments. Specifically, they're examining how arguments with friends at school may spill over and cause arguments at home, along with the reverse — how verbal fights at home affect things at school.

Author:

Mark Wheeler

Adolescence, Ethnicity and Immigration Research Program

Awareness of ethnicity-based stigma found to start as early as second grade

Semel Web Manager — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 23:01:29 +0000

Students are stigmatized for any number of reasons, from the clothes they wear to what model cell phone they clench in their hands. Now, in a new report, researchers from UCLA show that youths from a range of ethnic-minority backgrounds have an added burden to contend with: ethnicity-based stigmatization. Even elementary school–aged children are aware of such stigmatization and, like older youths, they feel more anxious about school as a result. In the current online edition of the journal Child Development, senior author Andrew J.

Author:

Mark Wheeler

Adolescence, Ethnicity and Immigration Research Program

Religious Identity Remains Constant in Teen Years

System Admin — Thu, 07 Jul 2011 07:00:00 +0000

Article link:

http://onespot.wsj.com/health/2011/07/07/ba31f/religious-identity-remains-consta...

Andrew Fuligni, professor of psychiatry at the Semel Institute, appeared in a HealthDay News story discussing how many U.S. teens maintain their religious identity through high school, even when their participation in church, synagogue and other religious activities declines.

Adolescence, Ethnicity and Immigration Research Program

Teens maintain their religion as part of their identity during turbulent high school years

Semel Web Manager — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 17:15:00 +0000

High school is a turbulent time for adolescents. Every parent knows these are the years when teens begin to spread their wings, develop their own self-awareness and confirm their identification with specific social groups and cultures. In short, they find their niche. But a new finding out of UCLA shows there is one aspect of their lives that basically stays the course — religion. Andrew J. Fuligni, a UCLA professor of psychiatry, and colleagues found that teens, regardless of their ethnic background, retained their religious identity even as their participation in religious activities, such as attending church, declined. Further, they found that adolescents' ethnic background shaped their religious identity and participation.

Author:

Mark Wheeler

Division of Adult Psychiatry

Discrimination Hurts Teens More Than We Know

System Admin — Thu, 14 Oct 2010 07:00:00 +0000

Article link:

http://www.scrippsnews.com/node/57135

Research by Andrew Fuligni, a professor of psychiatry at the Semel Institute, and graduate student Virginia W. Huynh, was featured in a Oct. 14 Scripps News column about their study finding that, in ethnic teens, discrimination can affect grade-point averages and health, and is associated with depression, distress and lower self-esteem.

Adolescence, Ethnicity and Immigration Research Program

Discrimination hurts, but how much?

Semel Web Manager — Mon, 13 Sep 2010 22:00:00 +0000

It's tough being a teen. Are you in or are you out? Are you hanging with the right crowd? Are you dressing and talking and acting the right way? For adolescents who are ethnic minorities, on top of this quest to "fit in" is the added layer — and the burden — of dealing with discrimination, say UCLA researchers. In a new study, the researchers found that adolescents from Latin American and Asian backgrounds experienced more discrimination than their peers from European backgrounds and that the discrimination came not only from other adolescents but from adults as well. The level of discrimination also impacted these teens' grade-point averages and their health and was associated with depression, distress and lower levels of self-esteem.

Author:

Mark Wheeler

Adolescence, Ethnicity and Immigration Research Program

Good grades? It's all in who you know

Semel Web Manager — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 17:30:00 +0000

Enrichment classes, after-school activities, tutoring, not to mention the gentle prodding of parents — all may count in giving a child that extra academic edge. But parents still puzzle over what the right mix is to make their children excel in school. It turns out that the missing ingredient could be the friends a child keeps, specifically their in-school friends, the ones who sweat the same tests and homework and complain about the same teachers, rather than those they may make outside of school.

Author:

Mark Wheeler

Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry