Acculturation in Context: The Moderating Effects of Immigrant and Native Peer Orientations on the Acculturation Experiences of Immigrants (original) (raw)
Related papers
2022
Although acculturation is considered a mutual process, no measure assesses attitudes toward mutual acculturation. Through a novel four-dimensional measurement, this study addresses this research gap by assessing attitudes toward minority and majority acculturation and its relation to psychological adjustment for immigrant-background minority and non-immigrant majority adolescents in public secondary schools in three European countries: in Germany (n = 346, 46% female, M age = 12.78 years, range 11-16), Greece (n = 439, 56% female, M age = 12.29 years, range 11-20), and Switzerland (n = 375, 47% female, M age = 12.67 years, range 11-15). Latent profile analyses led to three distinct acculturation profiles in all three countries: strong and mild mutual integration profiles, where both migrant and majority students are expected to integrate, and a third profile assuming lower responsibility upon the majority. Additionally, those in the strong-and mild-integration profiles reported stronger psychological adjustment than those assuming lower responsibility upon the majority, which held for all students in Switzerland and mostly for those without a migration background in Germany. The findings demonstrate the importance of a mutual acculturation framework for future research. Moreover, as most adolescents fit in with one of the mutual integration patterns, findings stress that no matter their migration background, adolescents favor mutual integration including the expectation on schools to enhance intercultural contact.
Intercultural Profiles and Adaptation Among Immigrant and Autochthonous Adolescents
Europe’s Journal of Psychology, 2015
Few studies examine relationships between intercultural strategies and adaptation among adolescents using a person-oriented approach. Framed from an intercultural psychology perspective, this study used such an approach in order to examine the influence of intercultural profiles, patterns of relationships among variables related to intercultural strategies, on the adaptation of adolescents of both non-dominant and dominant groups. Two hundred and fifty-six adolescents living in Italy and aged from 14 to 18 participated to the study: 127 immigrants from Tunisia (males = 49.61%) and 129 autochthonous (males = 44.19%). Data were collected through self-report questionnaires. Using cluster analytic methods to identify profiles, the results showed that immigrant adolescents were divided in two acculturation profiles, ethnic and integrated-national, with adolescents belonging to the latter showing higher self-esteem, life satisfaction and sociocultural competence than the former. Also among autochthonous adolescents two acculturation expectation profiles were identified, not-multicultural and multicultural, with adolescents belonging to the latter showing higher self-esteem and life satisfaction than the former. Findings highlight the importance of using multiple indicators in order to gain a more comprehensive understanding of the acculturation process as well as suggesting implications for the social policies in this field.
This study examines acculturation perceptions and preferences in peripheral and central life areas in immigrant and host adolescents from Italy (N = 359) and Spain (N = 295), using a questionnaire based on the Relative Acculturation Extended Model by Navas et al. Results showed a discrepancy between immigrant and host partici-pants' perspectives in both countries: immigrant participants practice and prefer to maintain their original culture in central areas but to adopt the host culture in peripheral ones; host participants perceive immigrants to maintain their original culture but would prefer them to adopt the host culture, in both domains. Implications for inter-cultural relationships are discussed.
Identity and Acculturation in Immigrant and Second Generation Adolescents
Adolescent Psychiatrye, 2011
The experience of immigration presents developmental challenges to adolescents that can lead to negative mental health outcomes, or can result in resiliency, psychological growth and enrichment of the personality structure. This article reviews the most recent demographics and research findings of the first and second generation immigrant adolescents in the United States. It explains the psychodynamic processes of migration and acculturation, and the risk factors and protective factors that affect these adolescents. Finally, it offers some suggestions regarding treatment approaches with this population.
Understanding adolescents’ acculturation processes: New insights from the intergroup perspective
New Directions for Child and Adolescent Development, 2020
Recent developments in the acculturation literature have emphasized the importance of adopting inter-group perspectives that provide a valuable background for investigating how acculturation orientations (i.e., maintenance of the culture of origin and the adoption of the destination culture) of adolescents from migrant families are embedded in their proximal socialization contexts. Accordingly, we sought to understand the combined effects of the perceived parents' acculturation orientations and classmates' acculturation preferences on adolescents' own acculturation orientations in two independent cultural contexts, namely NorthEast of Italy (Study I) and SouthEast of Turkey (Study II). Participants were 269 (53.2% female; Mage = 14.77) and 211 (71.1% female; Mage = 15.37) adolescents from migrant families in Italy and in Turkey, respectively. Findings indicated that adolescents' acculturation orientations were influenced by their perceptions of both parents' acculturation orientations and classmates' acculturation preferences. In addition, the effects of parents' adoption of the destination culture were stronger than the effects of classmates' preferences for adoption of the destination culture in both countries. However, the effects of parents' maintenance of the culture of origin were stronger than the effects of classmates' preferences for maintaining the culture of origin in Turkey, but not in Italy.
International Journal of Social Psychiatry, 2006
Study background and aims: This study investigates the psychosocial adjustment of immigrant adolescents and examines two hypotheses: the ethnicity hypothesis, which suggests that ethnic background determines the psychosocial reactions of immigrant adolescents; and the migration hypothesis, which suggests that the migration experience determines such reactions. Methods: The study compared four groups of respondents: first-generation immigrants (N ¼ 63) and second-generation immigrants (N ¼ 64) from the former Soviet Union (FSU) in Israel; and Jewish (N ¼ 212) and non-Jewish (N ¼ 184) adolescents in the FSU. A self-report questionnaire administered to the respondents collected demographic, educational and psychological data using standardised scales. Results: Immigrant adolescents reported higher psychological distress, lower self-esteem and higher alchohol consumption than non-immigrant adolescents. Second-generation immigrants generally showed a higher level of functioning than first-generation immigrants. These findings favor the migration hypothesis. Conclusions: Our findings support the widely accepted view of migration as a potentially distress-provoking experience. They suggest that psychological reactions of immigrant adolescents, and in fact all immigrants, are best interpreted as reactive and are related to the universal stressful qualities of the migration experience. Further multiethnic comparative studies, however, are needed to confirm and refine these findings.
Immigrant Adolescents' Adaptation to a New Context: Ethnic Friendship Homophily and Its Predictors
Child Development Perspectives, 2014
Although interethnic friendships are among the best indicators of social adaptation to a new cultural context, adolescent immigrants form friendships predominantly within their own ethnic community, a phenomenon called friendship homophily. In this article, I focus on the acculturation of immigrant adolescents and on the factors that lead them to form friendships within their group, including acculturation-related behaviors, mutual attitudes of native and immigrant groups, developmental agerelated considerations, and the context in which these adolescents live. The results present opportunities not only for reducing friendship homophily but also point to the complexity of acculturation research and the need to study side effects of adolescents' adaptation to a new context.
Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology, 2013
The present study examines the generational differences in the relation between acculturative stress and internalizing symptoms (i.e., anxiety and depression) with a sample of 304 urban residing first-and second-generation immigrant adolescents. In addition, the role of perceptions of social support-a critical element to healthy immigrant adolescent adaptation-is explored as a mediator of this relation. Results indicate that first-generation adolescents report more acculturative stress and internalizing symptoms than do second generation. Employing a moderated mediation framework , we find that perceptions of both emotional and academic social support mediate the relation between acculturative stress and internalizing symptoms for the first generation but not for the second. Our findings serve to expand the discourse of the "immigrant paradox" .