Hello everyone and welcome again. Today, I'm delighted to have a very special visitor from Athens, Greece. Coming to us via Skype, Frosso Motti-Stefanidi, who is a professor at the University of Athens. She and I have also collaborated for sometime. She directs the Athena Studies of Resilience Adaptation called AStRA for short. Where I [INAUDIBLE] and our graduate students are able to collaborate on research. That research often is focused on immigrant youth. And Frosso is one of the leading experts on risk and resilience in immigrant youth. Frosso is also current president of the European Association of Developmental Psychology. And she also is the chair of the International Committee for the Society for Research in Child Development. She is a graduate, her PhD of the University of Minnesota Institute of Child Development. Which is the same department where I am currently a professor. Although we didn't know each other when she went to Graduate School here at the University. So, welcome Frosso. We're so glad you could join us today. >> Hello, and thank you for inviting me. It's really fun. I was looking forward. >> Good. You are very well known, Frosso, for your research on immigrant youth, especially focused on risk and resilience. And I thought a good place for us to start would be to have you tell us how you got started doing research in that area. >> Well, I think as you may have already announced in Greek and I lived in Greece. And Greece has seen a geometric increase of immigrants during the last 20 years. And there have been problems related to this increase in immigration. Problem seen adults but also problems in the schools. So it has been difficult to assimilate and integrate these young people. However, we know that their future is really consequential not just for them. I mean actually what is happening now, their adaptation is consequential for their future and for the future of society. And so this is how I got interested in this work. >> And I mean this is a big issue all over the world I know, but it's especially a big issue in Europe, isn’t it? >> It is especially a big issue in Europe. Some countries used to be the source of immigration like Greece it was. So we used to send immigrants not be a receiving society. Other countries have had immigrants for a much longer time like Germany or like France in the UK who have immigrants from the colonies. Not considered immigrants anymore, but still they come from a different ethnicity. So yes, this is a big issue and that big problems at the society level involved because there is reaction in relationship to the presence in the countries. >> Well, we've been talking of course about resilience in this course. And I thought it would be great for the participants to hear your thoughts on how you define resilience when you're studying immigrant youth. >> Well, immigrant youths, like all youth have to deal with developmental tasks of their time in age. They have to do well in school, they have to have friends. They need to have positive conduct and to be adapted that way in their environment at school, in the neighborhood, in the society. But at the same time, these immigrant youth need to deal with a culturative task which is over and above what other youth often has to deal with. So they have to learn the language, the attitude, the values, the behaviors that are considered appropriate for their ethnic group. As well as those that are considered appropriate and are important for their new home. And so to judge who is doing well, you need to take into account both who is doing well with respect to developmental tasks, but also who is doing well with respect to this culturative tasks. And there's a third criterion that we have used and this has to do with psychological well being. So you dont really only want to have youth who do well in school or who have learned the language of the host country for example, but you also want to have happy youths. Youths that has high self-esteem, that does not show emotional symptoms and that is doing psychologically well. So these are the three really integrated criteria that we have been using to decide on who is well adopted, positively adopted in the new country. >> Well, tell us a bit more specifically about some of the studies you've been doing with immigrant youth in Greece? >> Well, we've had an initial large study of over 1,000 youth that were of middle school, so 12 to 15 years. That we started following in the first year of middle school, they we're coming from two different specific ethnic groups. Young people from Albania and young people from ex-Soviet Union countries that have a Greek ethnic identity. But we also studied there a Greek classmates. So we studied whole schools really. And we went to schools that had quite a few of them, so that had a high proportion of immigrants enrolled. We follow this young people for three years and we started a number of adaptation outcomes like the ones I described earlier. But we also studied repeatedly over these three years a number of potential risk. So for example, immigrant status versus being Greek for example. Or discrimination, perceived discrimination, or social adversity of the family. Those are potential risk and they are actually were shown to be risk for adaptation. And we also studied again, during these three years repeatedly, a potential resources. Resources that help these youth do better if they have them. So this is basically the basic design of the study. >> And I know that you've started another study. Post economic crisis in Europe? >> Yes, uh-huh. >> Tell us about the piece. >> We are now conducting a second longitudinal study in the same schools as before. Only now it is during the economic crisis, which the Greek economic crisis which is well known. We again, have for our following more than 1,000 students as I said in the same schools of the same age. Again, through the three years of middle school. And we administer a number of the same measures. But also we go into more depth on a number of different issues in those that we have studied before. And the two basic questions that we're trying to address are whether immigrant status is a risk for adaptation. And okay, that I see something that we have extensively examined. And also those who do well, why do they do well? Because you'll find within groups that there are some who do worse and others who do better and others who do very well. And so the big question is why? And this is a main focus of our resilience study is to understand what supports, what promotes positive adaptation in this youth or any youth for that matter. >> So you'll be able to see with the before crisis and after crisis whether it's the same risk and protective factors or if there's something changed and different? >> Yes. Well, the first point is to see whether we have changes in adaptation over this period before the crisis and after the crisis. There seems to be some changes but I don't want to announce them yet because we're still in the middle of this analysis. But this is the first question. And then another important question regarding the new study is how can we explain the changes that we see from cohort one to cohort two. With regard to adaptation and how well this youth does or does not do. How has the crisis affected youth and how can we explain that. From the study that's already been completed or largely completed from the first cohort, what were the main findings from that study? What were the most important findings from your perspective? >> I think that I would divide them in two big categories. One being, concerning risk. And it seems that in our study, being an immigrant is a risk factor for some domains of adaptation over and above being poor or having a family with high social adversity. So once we control for that immigrant status still explains a lot of variants in a number of outcomes and first and foremost in grades. In academic achievement, but not only. So this is one very important, I think point. And one has to explain and we have partially being able to explain why. I mean discrimination is another additional risk factor that explains why being an immigrant is a negative thing over and above social adversity. So this is one side and the other side has to do with resilience. So who is well adapted and why. And I think that one of the very interesting results is that we have a confirmation of the ordinariness of resilience. Which is a point your always trying to make. And which basically shows that the our immigrant youth, as well as the Greek youth in the study who have high in personal agency. So for example, high in self efficacy, they believe they will be able to deal with difficulties and with challenges. And as well as youth who have families that are functioning well, well adapted themselves in a high net of stability as a family. This youth, we have shown is doing better than youth who do not have these characteristics. We have found very few clearly protective factors among those that really that could characterize Greeks and immigrants. So they are really more promotive than protective this effect, so yeah. >> Okay. I know that you've had an interest in so called immigrant paradox and we've talked a little bit about that in the class. Would you talk a bit about your understanding of the immigrant paradox and whether or not your findings fit with that idea or not. >> Well, the immigrant paradox is a phenomenon whereby immigrant youth is doing better than native or national youth and one step further. And especially in American studies, what you will find is that immigrant youth of first generation. Is doing better than immigrant youth of second generation. So these are really the basic two arguments about the paradox which haven't found in the United States for sure. But especially in some ethnic groups and for some domains adaptation, not for all ethnic groups in all domains. And they have also been described in some other countries in Europe. But relatively few in my studies, but also in a number of studies in Germany and other European countries in Holland for example. We find that immigrant youth especially in terms of school adjustment are not doing better than native youth. Neither the first generation or the second generation, they're doing worse and sometimes significantly worse. And so of course, one has to try to explain this and this may be related to the characteristics of the group. It may be related to the characteristics of the country of the receiving society. But it is a very interesting phenomenon and we find huge differences and there's a disagreement about this of what this means. >> Well, I want to just wrap up with one final question and that is really what you hope will come of not only your own research but all the research on immigrant youth. How would you like that to be used by societies around the world? >> Well, I hope that at the end of the road, we will sensitize societies. And this is especially important for European societies that have seen an upsurge of anti-immigration reactions by the natives. So that we will be able to sensitize societies to see what is needed to be done for the positive integration of this youth. And that we will be able to convince society, societies actually that it is important to promote this positive integration for the good of society itself, not only for the good of youth. >> Mm-hm. Do you think that there's any change that you've observed in communities and societies thinking about immigrant youth as a potential resource and for the society. Thinking of immigrant youth as a positive source of human capital for the future society. Is that changing at all? >> I think that this is one important point that the European Commission is pushing for. It’s very clear in many of its documents related to immigration and what to do with immigrants in our countries and what decisions need to be pushed. But I think that especially in the center of Europe and in the south, you don't really see that much yet. And especially now with economic crisis when resources are scarce. There is even more of a reaction towards people who are considered outsiders and who are fighting for the same resources. So I hope in the future that this will be more true, but I don't see that much yet. >> Okay, well we're working on that same goal in the United States and North America and I'm sure in many other countries as well. Well, we should stop but thank you for your time and coming to us all the way from Athens for this interview, thank you. >> Thank you for having me and thank you. >> Bye-bye [LAUGH]. >> Bye-bye.
