This study investigated how as reported by Bandura (Self-efficacy: The exercise of
control Freeman, 1997) sources of self-efficacy differ across socialization contexts
for German students with diverse immigrant backgrounds. We measured all four
sources of academic self-efficacy in three socialization contexts for students of for-
mer Soviet Union and Turkish descent as well as without an immigrant background,
assuming that we would find differences between these groups. Participants were
1217 seventh-grade students in Germany. Multigroup structural equation analyses
with latent variables revealed the differential importance of socialization contexts
for the relation between academic self-efficacy and its sources across groups. For
students of former Soviet Union and Turkish descent, verbal or social persuasion
is the strongest contributing factor for academic self-efficacy, whereas for students
without an immigrant background, it is mastery experience. In the school context,
significant relationships between sources of self-efficacy and academic self-efficacy
could only be observed for students without an immigrant background. The results
both support and refine Bandura’s social cognitive theory by showing that self-
related constructs function differently in students with culturally diverse immigrant
backgrounds.