Social Support, Self-Esteem, and Depression in Russian Immigrant Children
Social Support, Self-Esteem, and Depression in Russian Immigrant Children
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Issue Date
2002
Authors
Landau, Jenifer
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Abstract
The purpose of this research was to investigate whether there are certain conditions during immigration for Russian children that contribute to their psychological difficulties. This study looked at the self-esteem and depression levels of children who had· friends who were immigrants from Russia versus children who did not. This research also explored how the age of the child at immigration and fluency in English related to self-esteem and depression. The data gathered for this research were obtained from different instruments: (1) Depression Self-Rating Scale (Birleson, 1981); (2) Hare Self-Esteem Scale (Hare, 1985); and (3) a Questionnaire on Demographic Information. The sample comprised 28 Russian immigrant males and females between the ages of 7 and 15. It was found that the overall relationship between psychological well-being and certain factors of migrating to a new country was statistically significant. Immigrant children who had friends who were also immigrants from Russia did have higher self-esteem and lower levels of depression than immigrant children who did not have Russian immigrant friends. It was not found in this study that the younger a child was when he moved to the United States, the higher his self-esteem was, and the lower his level of depression was. There was also no correlation between how well the child spoke English and his level of depression. Although not part of the hypothesis, it was found that the older the participants were, the lower their level of depression was. Also, those with no siblings had slightly higher school self-esteem scores than those with siblings.