Acculturation attitudes and social adjustment in British South Asian children: a longitudinal study.
A 1-year longitudinal study with three testing points was conducted with 215 British Asian children aged 5 to 11 years to test hypotheses from Berry's acculturation framework. Using age-appropriate measures of acculturation attitudes and psychosocial outcomes, it was found that (a) children generally favored an "integrationist" attitude, and this was more pronounced among older (8-10 years) than in younger (5-7 years) children and (b) temporal changes in social self-esteem and peer acceptance were associated with different acculturation attitudes held initially, as shown by latent growth curve analyses. However, a supplementary time-lagged regression analysis revealed that children's earlier "integrationist" attitudes may be associated with more emotional symptoms (based on teachers' ratings) 6 months later. The implications of these different outcomes of children's acculturation attitudes are discussed.
1Sussex University, Brighton, UK.
Rupert
R
Brown
Gülseli
G
Baysu
Lindsey
L
Cameron
Dennis
D
Nigbur
Adam
A
Rutland
Charles
C
Watters
Rosa
R
Hossain
Dominique
D
Letouze
Anick
A
Landau
D000069:Acculturation; D000223:Adaptation, Psychological; D000367:Age Factors; D001211:Asia, Western; D001290:Attitude; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D008297:Male; D010379:Peer Group; D012929:Psychological Distance; D012917:Social Adjustment; D044465:White People
Acculturation; development; intergroup relations; well-being