Scholarship at UWindsor

Multicultural youth in Canada: Comparing friendships and perceived social support

University of Windsor

There is paucity of research examining the differences between friendships among multicultural youth. Specifically, youth of Arab, East Asian, South Asian, and European descent were examined in this study because these groups are among the largest ethnic groups in Canada and are diverse for the purpose of comparison. Previous researchers have assessed differences between immigrant generations when comparing same- and cross-ethnicity friendships (e.g., Harker, 2001), whereas the effect of cultural group has been neglected. Thus, examination of same- and cross-ethnicity friendships was largely exploratory. Researchers in the past have theorized that individuals of Arab descent may be more likely to have an overlap between family and friends (Abu-Laban & Abu-Laban, 1999). Thus, we hypothesized that Arab youth may be more likely to have related friends (i.e., to identify friends that also happen to be related to them). The results of this study may have implications for improving our understanding of the social support networks of immigrant youth.

https://scholar.uwindsor.ca/arabyouthsymp/conference_posters/conference_posters/6