Self-perceptions and Engagement in Low-Socioeconomic Elementary School Students: The Moderating Effects of Immigration S
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ORIGINAL PAPER
Self‑perceptions and Engagement in Low‑Socioeconomic Elementary School Students: The Moderating Effects of Immigration Status and Anxiety Vanessa Kurdi1 · Isabelle Archambault2
© Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract According to Connell and Wellborn’s Self-System Model of Motivational Development (SSMMD; Self processes and development, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Hillsdale, pp 43–77, 1991), school engagement is fostered by students’ perception that their needs for competence, autonomy, and relatedness are fulfilled. The universal claim of this model has rarely been tested across groups of students with diverse immigration backgrounds, socioeconomic status, or emotional problems such as anxiety. To fill this gap, we conducted a longitudinal study to examine the associations between, on the one hand, student self-perceptions of competence in mathematics, of autonomy and of relatedness, and on the other hand, their behavioral, affective, and cognitive engagement. We further tested whether immigration status and anxiety moderated these associations. The study involved 170 elementary school students from disadvantaged multiethnic schools. Results demonstrated that high relatedness was associated with affective engagement in all students. Furthermore, the links between students’ engagement and their self-perceptions of autonomy and competence in mathematics varied according to their immigration status and anxiety level. For instance, most of the results showed that immigrant students presenting a high level of anxiety reported being more engaged than other students when they felt autonomous. Finally, the results showed that self-perceptions were not associated with all dimensions of school engagement in all students. These findings challenge the universality of the SSMMD and provide new evidence supporting the necessity of adapting interventions to fulfill psychological needs and promote engagement among vulnerable students. Keywords Self-determination theory · Self-perceptions · Engagement · Immigration · Anxiety
Introduction A growing proportion of the population in Western countries originates from international migration (Statistics Canada, 2015; Trevelyan et al., 2016). In North American school systems, about one in four students has an immigration background (Child Trends Data Bank, 2014; Ministère de * Vanessa Kurdi [email protected] Isabelle Archambault [email protected] 1
Department of Psychology, Université de Montréal, C. P. 6128, succursale Centre‑ville, Montreal, QC H3C 3J7, Canada
School of Psychoeducation, Université de Montréal, C. P. 6128, succursale Centre‑ville, Montreal, QC H3C 3J7, Canada
2
l’Éducation du Loisir et du Sport, 2013). While studies have highlighted the resilience of first-generation (foreign-born) and second-generation (with foreign-born parents) immigrant youths (Beiser, Hou, Hyman, & Tousignant, 2002; Georgiades, Boyle, & Duku, 2007), immigrants remain more likely to experience emotional p
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