Parental depression has been highlighted as a major risk factor for the development of psychopathology in children and adolescents (Mars et al, 2012; Sellers et al, 2013). Garber & Martin (2002) suggest that the primary environmental stressor that children living with depressed parents are exposed to relates to the impact of maternal depression on marital conflict. Interparental conflict has been demonstrated to have negative effects on various aspects of family functioning and relationships. Strong associations between conflict levels in parental relationships and negative parent-child relationships support this theory (Erel & Burmann, 1995). The parent- child relationship is viewed as a central mechanism for the transmission of psychopathology across generations of a family (Rutter et al., 2010). This thesis examines the relationship between parental depression and family processes (specifically interparental and parent-child relationships) on the development of depressive and aggressive symptoms in children and adolescents. Four data sets examine these associations: a high risk sample of parents with recurrent depression and their adolescent children (Early Prediction of Adolescent Depression, EPADS), a community sample of low-risk adolescents and their families (Welsh Family Study, WFS), a sample of families who have conceived children using Artificial Reproductive Technologies (the Cardiff IVF Study, C-IVF) and a longitudinal adoption study (Early Growth and Development Study, EGDS). Findings from this thesis presents evidence that a process exists by which parental depressive symptoms contribute to the development of psychopathology in children and adolescents through disrupted interparental and parent-child relationships. Parental depression was consistently associated with interparental conflict, which in turn was associated with higher levels of parent-child hostility. For child outcomes, the most consistent finding was the association between parent-child hostility and child and adolescent symptoms of aggression. This was observed in all four data sets, in a variety of samples and across a range of developmental periods. The association was observed where adolescents were classed as being at either a high or low-risk for the development of psychopathology, and for those families where parents were rearing genetically related and genetically unrelated children.

The acculturation process is an important part of the experience that immigrant children and their families go through when adapting to live in a new country. Most studies on acculturation have included immigrant groups – mainly adults – living in North America and Europe. This thesis seeks to redress that imbalance by focussing on the acculturation attitudes and well-being of children and adolescents both in Chile and the United Kingdom (UK). A further important aspect is to examine how the discrepancies in acculturation within the family relate to children's well-being and family relationships. In this thesis, a bi-dimensional approach (both desire for culture maintenance and culture adoption/desire for contact with other groups) is used to test various hypotheses about the relationship between acculturation orientations - children's, parents' and discrepancies between the children and parents - and well-being of children. Several features characterise the research: two different receiving contexts (UK and Chile); different national origins of participants (with immigrant background and non-immigrant background); use of cross-sectional, longitudinal and qualitative methods; use of both perceived parent and actual parent scores; and the presence of social mediators and moderators (e.g., perceived discrimination, perceived peer acceptance, perceived school climate and perceived family relationship). The main findings were that, both in UK and Chile, immigrant children showed preference for maintenance of their heritage culture (CM) and establishing contact with receiving groups (DC) (or adopting the receiving culture (CA)), and that this preference was related to better well-being than other options, both concurrently and longitudinally. The acculturation discrepancies between children and parents had different consequences on well-being if they were on CM, CA or DC, depending on the measure used to calculate the discrepancies and also for immigrant and non-immigrant children. The findings are discussed in relation to the existing literature, and implications are drawn for improving psychological adjustment of immigrants and for future research that is needed.

Youth disaffection is associated with huge personal and social costs, with future trajectories typically marked by school exclusion, poverty, unemployment, youth offending, and substance abuse. Core theoretical frameworks including perspectives concerning self-determination, self-discrepancy, and achievement motivation provide explanations for the role of social-environment factors, self-concepts and cognitions in human motivation. However, there has been little work to integrate these theories into a nuanced account of the socio-motivational processes underpinning school disaffection, and our understanding of how interventions may work to re-direct the negative trajectories remains weak. This thesis includes four papers reporting on a programme of theoretical and empirical research conducted in order to address this gap in knowledge. The first, a theoretical paper, presents an integrated model of the development of school disaffection in which multiple self-construals play a key role in bridging the gap between need fulfilment and cognitive and behavioural indicators of school disaffection. The second paper reports on a thematic analysis of extensive semi-structured individual interviews with school-excluded young people and practitioners working with them. In accordance with our theoretical model, the accounts of the young people‟s emotional and behavioural profiles in achievement contexts were connected to need-thwarting social experiences, with maladaptive constructions of multiple selves appearing to mediate the relationship between these factors. The third paper presents an analysis of quantitative survey data with school-excluded and mainstream secondary school pupils that investigated the direct and mediated pathways between key processes identified by our model. Results showed that pathways between key variables were moderated by the experience of exclusion such that distinct pathways emerged for excluded and non-excluded pupils. The final paper reports on an in-depth, longitudinal, idiographic study exploring the impact of theatre involvement on marginalised young people. Results from an interpretative phenomenological analysis of interview transcripts suggested that the nurturing, creative environment of the theatre project provided optimal conditions for promoting resilience and self-development in youth at risk. Together, the findings from this programme of research highlight the crucial role played by social experiences in the development of school disaffection via the impact on self-construals, motivation and achievement goals, as well as the role they can play in supporting young people to create more positive life trajectories. This body of work has implications for further research and also carries practical implications for interventions and school-based practices seeking to both support school-disaffected children, and increase engagement in those at risk of school disaffection.