Acculturation Attitudes and Social Adjustment in British South Asian Children

Abstract

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.