BACKGROUND "The gender gap" refers to a lifelong higher rate of emotional problems in girls, as compared to boys, that appears during adolescence. The gender gap is a well-replicated finding among older adolescents and is assumed to be a cross-cultural phenomenon. However, these cross-cultural studies have not investigated the gender gap in ethnic minorities but sampled ethnic majority adolescents in different countries. Some studies that investigated the gender gap across ethnic groups indirectly (by presenting emotional problem scores stratified by gender and ethnic group) indicate that the gender gap is less prominent or even absent among minorities. The aims of this study were to assess whether the gender gap is found in both majority and minority preadolescents, and to investigate whether a possible (gender and ethnic) group difference can be accounted for by differences in home or school hassles. METHODS Participants were 902 preadolescent students (aged 10 to 12) from two cities in Norway. We collected self-report measures of emotional problems and home and school hassles. Using mediated moderation analysis we tested whether the interaction effect between gender and ethnic minority background on emotional problems was mediated by home or school hassles. RESULTS The gender gap in emotional problems was restricted to ethnic majority preadolescents. School hassles but not home hassles accounted in part for this effect. CONCLUSIONS The absence of the gender gap among minority as opposed to majority preadolescents may indicate that social circumstances may postpone or hamper the emergence and magnitude of the gender gap in ethnic minority preadolescents. In this study, school hassles partly accounted for the combined gender and ethnic group differences on emotional problems. This indicates that school hassles may play a role in the higher levels of emotional problems in preadolescent minority boys and consequently the absence of a gender gap found in our minority sample.

中文翻译：

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挪威青春期前的情绪问题：性别的作用、少数民族地位以及与家庭和学校有关的麻烦。

背景“性别差距”是指与男孩相比，女孩在青春期出现的终生情绪问题发生率更高。性别差距在年龄较大的青少年中得到了很好的复制，并被认为是一种跨文化现象。然而，这些跨文化研究并未调查少数民族的性别差距，而是对不同国家的少数民族青少年进行抽样。一些间接调查族群间性别差距的研究（通过呈现按性别和族群分层的情绪问题评分）表明，少数民族之间的性别差距不那么突出甚至不存在。这项研究的目的是评估是否在多数和少数的青春期前都发现了性别差距，并调查是否可以通过家庭或学校麻烦的差异来解释可能的（性别和种族）群体差异。方法 参与者是来自挪威两个城市的 902 名青春期前学生（10 至 12 岁）。我们收集了情绪问题以及家庭和学校麻烦的自我报告措施。使用中介调节分析，我们测试了性别和少数族裔背景之间对情绪问题的交互作用是否是由家庭或学校麻烦介导的。结果 情绪问题的性别差距仅限于少数民族占多数的青春期前。学校的麻烦而不是家庭的麻烦是造成这种影响的部分原因。结论 少数族裔与多数青春期前儿童之间没有性别差距可能表明社会环境可能会推迟或阻碍少数民族青春期前性别差距的出现和程度。在这项研究中，学校的麻烦部分解释了情绪问题上的性别和种族差异。这表明学校的麻烦可能在青春期前的少数族裔男孩的更高水平的情绪问题中发挥作用，因此在我们的少数族裔样本中没有发现性别差距。