Social-emotional adjustment of Chinese immigrant children in Western countries

Despite the large number of studies examining academic achievement of Chinese immigrant children (CIC) in Western countries, little is known about their social-emotional competence. Examination of the studies conducted in the last decade revealed mixed findings in terms of CIC’s social competence. Compared to Western children, CIC were found to possess less emotional knowledge and had difficulty regulating emotions consistent with the host cultural norms. The differences between Chinese collective and western individualist values are employed to consider these findings. The studies of CIC’s language competence with relevance to social-emotional adjustment are also reviewed. The results indicated that their English proficiency predicted their social-emotional wellbeing in the host countries.