How do young adult immigrants engage civically? What role does social connection play?

Potential keys to healthy civic development

Young adulthood is a time for the fundamental developmental tasks of defining identity and relationship to society. Immigrant young adults must take on these tasks while also responding to the pressures and challenges of discrimination, marginalization, and acculturation. As immigrants make up an increasing segment of population in the United States and Canada, understanding how immigrant young adults engage with civic society—and what fosters their healthy civic development—is important to strengthening healthy democracies.

Civic engagement—that is, individual and collective action designed to identify and address issues of public concern—is a critical way in which citizens contribute to civic society. Civic engagement may not only be positive in itself but also may offer alternative behaviors for young adults who are engaging in antisocial behaviors, such as delinquency.

How do young adult immigrants engage civically, and how does this change over time? Is it different for young men and women? What is the relationship between civic engagement and antisocial behavior?

Research on immigrant youth has examined both civic engagement and antisocial behavior, but typically not at the same time. A study in Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychologyopens in new window examined these questions among a group of Somali immigrants living in the United States and Canada.

Heidi Ellis, Georgios Sideridis, Alisa K. Lincoln, Saida M. Abdi, and Alisa B. Miller collected data on civic engagement (both political and nonpolitical), delinquent behavior, attitudes toward gangs, and openness to violent activism among 498 Somali young adults living in the United States and Canada. Using a person-centered approach called latent class analysis, Ellis and colleagues examined how these facets of the way citizens relate to society co-occurred among individuals, how the patterns of attitudes and behaviors changed over time, and whether this differed for men and women. Finally, they examined whether social connection or the sense of belonging to American/Canadian or Somali communities related to changes—for better or worse—in civic development over one year.

Overall, the researchers found that Somali young adults were highly engaged in their communities. Endorsement of antisocial behavior or attitudes were less common and when endorsed sometimes co-occurred with civic engagement. For instance, one group consisted of young men who showed both high levels of civic engagement and moderate support for gangs, violent activism, and some delinquent behavior. Another group consisted of young men who were moderately civically engaged and endorsed high levels of violent delinquency. Men who were in the first group (high civic engagement, moderate antisocial behavior) showed a lot of change in their civic development over the course of a year: Roughly half of them dropped their antisocial behavior over time, and the other half became less civically engaged.

Although the researchers could not determine what led to the changes, they did note that young men who reported feeling a strong sense of connection to either the American/Canadian or Somali communities tended to not score high on antisocial attitudes and behavior. A sense of social connection may be protective and could explain why some young males showed more positive civic development over time than others. Unfortunately, those in the violent delinquency group tended to stay in that group; more significant antisocial behaviors appeared to be more entrenched, suggesting that early intervention may be needed.

Overall, young Somali women showed much lower levels of antisocial behavior and attitudes than young men, along with high levels of civic engagement. But young adulthood appears to be a time of significant transition for these young women, as many became less civically engaged over the course of the year.

This study highlighted the diverse ways that Somali immigrants develop civically during young adulthood and the importance of social belonging in promoting positive civic development, especially for young men. As migration leads to increasingly diverse societies, fostering assets and strengths such as civic engagement and social connection may be an important way to build healthy societies.

Note: This article is in the Social Psychology and Social Processes topic area. View more articles in the Social Psychology and Social Processes topic area.

Ellis, B. H., Sideridis, G., Miller, A., Abdi, S. M., & Lincoln, A. K. (2021). Civic development and antisocial attitudes/behaviors among Somali immigrants: Change over one year. Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology, 27(2), 157–168. https://doi.org/10.1037/cdp0000432opens in new window

B. Heidi Ellisopens in new window, PhD, is an associate professor in psychology and psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and Boston Children’s Hospital, and a licensed clinical psychologist. She is also the director of the Trauma and Community Resilience Center at Boston Children’s Hospital, a partner in the National Child Traumatic Stress Network. Her primary focus is on understanding and promoting youth mental health and well-being, with a particular emphasis on understanding how trauma exposure, violence, and social context affect developmental trajectories.

Georgios Sideridis, PhD, received his doctorate in 1995 from the University of Kansas in child psychology. His research interests lie on psychometrics and measurement evaluation using item response theory, a field in which he is widely published.

Alisa K. Lincoln, PhD, MPH, is an interdisciplinary professor of sociology and health sciences and director of the Institute for Health Equity and Social Justice Research at Northeastern University. Her research examines the way that social exclusion and marginalization both contribute to and are consequences of poor mental health through the development of innovative models to increase community involvement in research.

Saida M. Abdi, PhD, is an assistant professor in the School of Social Work in the College of Education and Human Development at the University of Minnesota. She earned her doctorate from Boston University. Her area of focus is building individual, family, and community resilience and improving system capacity to meet the needs of refugee and immigrant families.

Alisa B. Miller, PhD, is a licensed psychologist and an assistant professor in psychology at Harvard Medical School and Boston Children’s Hospital. Her expertise is in promoting the mental health and well-being of youth from communities that have experienced high levels of trauma, adversity, and stress, specifically refugee and immigrant youth in the United States and Canada. She is interested in increasing health equity for all youth in our society.