Research clearly indicates that ethnic groups differ significantly on levels of mental and physical health, antisocial behavior, and educational attainment. This book explains these variations with respect to their psychological and social functioning and tests competing hypotheses about the mechanisms that might cause the functioning to differ in pattern from other groups. Attention is paid to educational attainments, antisocial behavior, schizophrenia and suicide, and to the complex and changing patterns of ethnic identity. The book concludes with a discussion of the multiple meanings of ethnicity, the major variations among ethnic groups, and policy implications.

Introduction Michael Rutter and Marta Tienda; 1. Natural experiments, causal influences, and policy development Michael Rutter; 2. Growing up ethnic in the UK and US: comparative contexts for youth development Marta Tienda; 3. The multiple facets of ethnicity Michael Rutter and Marta Tienda; 4. Educational attainments: ethnic differences in the UK Barbara Maughan; 5. Race and ethnic inequality in educational attainment in the United States Charles Hirschman and Jennifer C. Lee; 6. Racial and ethnic disparities in crime and delinquency in the United States Jeffrey D. Morenoff; 7. Explaining ethnic variations in crime and antisocial behavior in the UK David J. Smith; 8. Cultural differences in the effects of physical punishment Kirby Deater-Deckard, Kenneth A. Dodge and Emma Sorbring; 9. Ethnicity and mental health: the example of schizophrenia in the African-Caribbean population in Europe Peter B. Jones and W. L. Alan Fung; 10. Ethnic variations in youth suicide Jewelle Taylor Gibbs; 11. Ethnicity and intergenerational identities and adaptations in Britain: the socio-political context Tariq Modood; 12. Assimilation, dissimilation, and ethnic identities: the experience of children of immigrants in the United States Ruben G. Rumbaut; 13. Deciphering ethnicity Marta Tienda and Michael Rutter.