As Western societies become more ethnically and culturally diverse, understanding the acculturation of immigrant youth is essential for fostering social cohesion. How the cultural identity formation of ethnic minority adolescents relates to their academic, social, and psychological adjustment is an important and as yet unresolved research question. This study examined to what extent identifying with the heritage and/or host culture is an individual resource or risk factor for the adjustment of immigrant youth in Germany. A random sample of 15–17-year-olds (N = 1992; M_{age_w1} = 15.3 years, SD = 0.64; 44.5% girls; 44.7% students with immigrant background) was assessed twice: at the end of 9th and 10th grade. Academic performance and three dimensions of social/psychological adjustment (school attachment, self-esteem, and life satisfaction) were examined. Results showed that biculturalism was the modal identification pattern. Contrary to expectations, cultural identification did not differ systematically with perceived distance from the majority culture. Multivariate structural equation modeling revealed that both heritage and host identification can be developmental resources, but that their effects are dependent on the dimension of adjustment; biculturalism only proved to be a cumulative resource for school attachment. The domain specificity of the findings challenges the generalization claims of predominant acculturation theories.

What drives socioeconomic success within a society? This study analyzes how late childhood intelligence, parental socioeconomic background, and gender relate to multiple dimensions of adult socioeconomic success (i.e., education, occupational status, and income). A particular focus is placed on education, which is considered as both an indicator of socioeconomic success and a mediator of the relationships with the other dimensions. Randomly sampled participants (N = 5,292) in a German prospective longitudinal study were assessed for the first time at age 12 years in 1991 and for the last time as adults in 2009-10. Comparison of the effects of childhood intelligence and parental socioeconomic background revealed childhood intelligence to be the more powerful predictor of the 3 dimensions of later adult socioeconomic success. Education was the strongest predictor of both later adult occupational status and later adult income, and mediated most of the effects of childhood intelligence and parental socioeconomic background on later adult occupational status and later adult income. A gender income gap was apparent, with men reporting higher income, even when childhood factors and education were controlled. Education barely mediated any gender differences, but family-related structural factors (i.e., working part time and having children) explained much of the gender gap in income. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

The transition to secondary school may negatively impact adolescents’ psychosocial and subjective well-being development. However, how subjective well-being develops during secondary school and how school contextual factors, including aspects of ability grouping and achievement composition, are associated with the development of subjective well-being still require clarification. This study examined two measures of subjective well-being, life satisfaction and school satisfaction, to investigate the development of subjective well-being during secondary school. Moreover, school context variations in the form of school tracks and school-level achievement were analyzed to examine the extent to which ability grouping and achievement composition were associated with the development of subjective well-being. A large-scale longitudinal German dataset with four measurement points from grades 6 to 10 was analyzed (Time 1: N = 1,841; M_age = 12.20, SD = 0.81; 48.4% female; 45.3% immigrant students). The latent growth model revealed that life satisfaction and school satisfaction decreased statistically significantly during secondary school, yet school satisfaction showed a temporary increase between the end of primary school and right after the transition to secondary school. School tracks did not statistically significantly predict the magnitude of the decline in life satisfaction or school satisfaction. Only school-level achievement composition significantly negatively predicted the decline in life satisfaction, suggesting that students in schools with higher levels of achievement composition had a greater decrease in life satisfaction than their counterparts in schools with lower levels of achievement composition. Taken together, these findings contribute to the knowledge of how life and school satisfaction develop during secondary school and the long-term associations between subjective well-being and school context factors.