Development in context: The importance of country and school level factors for the mental health of immigrant adolescents

Theories on the impact of immigration on the mental health of adolescents have suggested both a risk and a resilience perspective. The two perspectives are reflected in the mixed results of many former studies on this topic, which have found higher, lower, or at times similar levels of mental health among immigrant and non-immigrant adolescents. Mixed findings suggest that understanding this phenomenon may demand taking into account aspects of the particular environments. Ecological theories of development emphasize the multiple circles of influence on young people’s lives such as the country and school in which immigrant adolescents are growing up in. Yet, relatively little attention has been paid to the extent to which the mental health of immigrant adolescents is dependent upon these contexts. In this chapter, the authors provide a brief overview of the relevant theoretical notions and the available literature in this respect, and come up with suggestions for future research.