In the last decade, the migrant population in Chile has substantially increased, where the rates have not only increased in the adult population, but also among children and adolescents, creating a potential for social and cultural development in the educational system. The present work analyzes the relationship between self-concept, self-efficacy, and subjective well-being in native and migrant adolescents in Santiago de Chile. The sample consisted of 406 students, 56.65% women, with an age range that fluctuated between 12 and 16 years, (...) with an average of 13.36 years. Student’s t-tests were used to compare the average of the constructs evaluated between natives/migrants and boys/girls participants. Subsequently, two multivariate models of simple mediation were constructed, one for natives and another for migrants, which assumed subjective well-being as a dependent variable, academic self-concept as an independent variable and the general self-efficacy as a mediating variable. In both models, gender was considered as a control variable. Results show that migrant students present higher levels of academic self-concept and general self-efficacy than native students. There are no differences with regard to well-being. In the case of gender, differences are observed only for the case of general self-efficacy, where boys present higher levels. On the other hand, a partial mediation is observed for the model of native students and a total mediation for the model of migrant students. The study yielded interesting results regarding the differences in the evaluation of the constructs of self-concept, self-efficacy, and subjective well-being in both groups. Such data can be used as inputs for the development of public policies for adolescents. (shrink)

Literature reports that depressive symptoms may precede suicidal ideation. Several studies have identified social support and substance use as moderators of this relationship. However, no study has evaluated these variables together by testing how substance use can affect the moderating effect of social support in this relationship. The purpose of this article is to individually evaluate dimensions of social support (friends, family, significant others, and school) and substance use (alcohol, marijuana, and other illicit drugs), as moderators of the relationship between (...) depressive symptoms and suicidal ideation; as well as analyze the moderating role of substance use in the moderation exerted by social support in this relationship. This study, quantitative and cross-sectional, considered 775 adolescents [Average age = 15.48 (SD = 0.96), 45.9% women], from 20 randomly selected schools in Santiago de Chile. Simple moderation models were used to analyze possible moderators separately, and double moderation models were used to analyze the moderating role of substance use in the moderating effect of social support. The results show that the four dimensions of social support moderate the relationship between depressive symptomatology and suicidal ideation, showing the strongest interaction in the case of family support, followed by support of a significant person, support at school, and support of friends, in that order. On the other hand, alcohol was the only drug that moderated the relationship in question. In addition, the results show that the use of alcohol limits the moderating effect of social support in the fields of family, significant person, and school support, but not in the case of support of friends. The use of marijuana and other illicit drugs did not affect the moderating effects of social support for any of the areas evaluated. The results are discussed according to the different roles that alcohol use can play in adolescence, and how these, together with perceived social support, are related to the emergence of suicidal ideation from depressive symptoms. (shrink)

Subjective well-being is a broad category of phenomena that includes people’s emotional responses, domain satisfactions, and global judgments of life satisfaction. This research investigates how schoolchildren’s subjective well-being is affected by the different types of technology use, in personal contexts, and, concurrently, whether these effects are different when the use of technology is problematic. The central hypotheses are as follows: the use of the Internet affects the subjective well-being of schoolchildren negatively only when this use is problematic and the effect (...) on subjective well-being is different according to the type of Internet use. To respond to the objectives of the research, a survey was applied to 15-year-old adolescents, distributed in 330 public schools, beneficiaries of a government program for the delivery of personal computers and Internet for a year. The different uses of the Internet were measured using frequency scales by type of activity. Problematic use scale measured the perception of negative consequences of the intensity of Internet use on a daily basis. Subjective well-being was measured by the Personal Well-Being Index-School Children. Subsequently, for analytical purposes, three simple mediation models were created, whose dependent variable was PWI-SC, while its independent variables were Internet use scales differentiated by purpose and problematic use as a mediating variable, as well as attributes of the subjects and their social environment, which were incorporated as control variables. The main results show that only if Internet use is expressed as problematic does it negatively affect subjective well-being. On the contrary, when the use of the Internet is not problematic, the effect is positive and even greater than the simple effect between these two variables. This finding is relevant, since it allows us to provide evidence that suggests that, when studying the effect that the intensity of the Internet, firstly, one must consider the mediating effect exerted by the network’s problematic use and, secondly, that not all types of use have the same impact. Therefore, it is useful to enrich the discussion on subjective well-being and social integration of schoolchildren in the digital age. (shrink)

This paper investigates the structure and composition of the social network formed on the campus of the Faculty of Economics and Business of Diego Portales University, Chile, exposing a series of characteristics that are aligned with similar research in the field of networks. We use a model of social networks formation in order to understand socioeconomic and academic factors that predict the formation of friendship between two students. Specifically, we test empirically our model, using students' administrative information. Of special interest (...) is the impact of the length of stay of the students in the university, with which we refer to the years completed in the degree course, in the probability of establishing friendship ties where being socioeconomically different is a condition. The mechanism behind a result like this is the sense of belongingness that being part of the same institution may induce amongst students. By means of counterfactual simulations we found evidence in favor that passing through the university increases the probability of forming friendship networks, which can mean a kind of social capital, thus reducing socioeconomic segregation from the Chilean school system. Given the importance of this finding, we believe that policies that increase the sense of belongingness such as cultural events, leaderships programs, and community should be implemented on university campuses. (shrink)