Intercultural relations among migrants from Caucasus and Russians in Moscow

This study examines intercultural relations in post-Soviet Russia. Russia currently has the world’s second highest number of immigrants with most migrants coming from the former Soviet Union, mainly the Central Asian and South Caucasian states. The research was carried out in Moscow, which is the most attractive destination for these immigrants. The paper presents the findings of an empirical study with migrants (N = 378) and residents of Moscow (N = 651) examining their intercultural relations, including their acceptance of multicultural ideology, intercultural contacts, intercultural strategies and mutual adaptation. The study was guided by three general hypotheses: the integration, the multicultural and the contact hypotheses. Data processing was carried out using path analysis, separately for migrants and Muscovites. For both samples, multicultural ideology predicts the strategy of integration positively, and of assimilation negatively. Intercultural contacts predict both acculturation strategies positively for migrants, but not for Muscovites. For migrants, both strategies positively predict life satisfaction, and integration predicts better sociocultural adaptation. For Muscovites, integration predicts life satisfaction. These specific findings fully support the two underlying hypotheses: integration and multicultural for both groups and contact hypothesis only for migrants. Multicultural ideology has positive relation to intercultural contacts of Muscovites and has indirect positive impact on intercultural strategies of migrants. Models demonstrated similar as well as different psychological processes underlying mutual acculturation and intercultural relations in the two groups. The similarities suggest that efforts should be directed at developing a multicultural ideology and facilitating intercultural contacts between migrants and members of the larger society.     

A process-oriented analysis of parent acculturation,parent socio-cultural stress,family processes,and Latina/o youth smoking and depressive symptoms

Latina/o youth in the U.S. are often characterized by elevated rates of cigarette smoking and depressive symptoms, and these rates appear to vary by youth acculturation and socio-cultural stress. Scholars suggest that parents’ cultural experiences may be important determinants of youth smoking and depressive symptoms. However, few studies have examined the influence of parent acculturation and related stressors on Latina/o youth smoking and depressive symptoms. To address this gap in the literature, in the current study we investigated how parent-reported acculturation, perceived discrimination, and negative context of reception affect youth smoking and depressive symptoms through parent reports of familism values and parenting. The longitudinal (4 waves) sample consisted of 302 Latina/o parent-adolescent dyads from Los Angeles (N = 150) and Miami (N = 152). Forty-seven percent of the adolescent sample was female (M age = 14.5 years), and 70% of the parents were mothers (M age = 41.10 years). Parents completed measures of acculturation, perceived discrimination, negative context of reception, familism values, and parenting. Youth completed measures regarding their smoking and symptoms of depression. Structural equation modeling suggested that parents’ collectivistic values (Time 1) and perceived discrimination (Time 1) predicted higher parental familism (Time 2), which in turn, predicted higher levels of positive/involved parenting (Time 3). Positive/involved parenting (Time 3), in turn, inversely predicted youth smoking (Time 4). These findings indicate that parents’ cultural experiences play important roles in their parenting, which in turn appears to influence Latino/a youth smoking. This study highlights the need for preventive interventions to attend to parents’ cultural experiences in the family (collectivistic values, familism values, and parenting) and the community (perceived discrimination).     

Development and preliminary validation of an acculturation scale for China’s rural to urban migrant children

The large-scale internal migration in China has provided an unparalleled scientific opportunity to study the conceptualization and measurement of adaptation processes among Chinese migrant youth. The present study aims to develop an acculturation instrument for Chinese children participating in the rural to urban migration. The newly developed acculturation scale was tested in a two-wave cross-sectional survey (N = 301 for phase 1 and N = 1773 for phase 2). The results suggested that the acculturation scale possessed adequate content and face validity as evaluated by expert panel and participants. Through exploratory factor analysis, the 20-item scale identified four theoretically supported factors: integration, assimilation, separation, and marginalization. The internal consistency of the four subscales was found to be adequate. The criterion-related validity estimates using the life satisfaction scale and depressive symptoms supported the use and continued development of the acculturation scale.     

Acculturation,self-efficacy and social support among Chinese immigrants in Northern Ireland

An opportunity sample of 108 Chinese participants (n_male = 51 and n_female = 57; M_age = 29.34) was compared to a second opportunity sample of 98 Northern Irish participants (n_male = 45 and n_female = 53; M_age = 23.67) on levels of acculturation, self-efficacy and social support. The administered questionnaire contained three scales to measure the aforementioned constructs. The first was the AMAS-NIC, a version of the Abbreviated Multidimensional Acculturation Scale [Zea, M. C., Asner-Self, K. K., Birman, D., & Buki, L. P. (2003). The Abbreviated Multidimensional Acculturation Scale: Empirical validation with two Latino/Latina samples. Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology, 9, 107–126] modified to apply to a population of Chinese immigrants in Northern Ireland. The second measure was Mary Wegner's 1992 English version of the General Self-Efficacy Scale [Wright, S., Johnston, M., & Weinman, J. (1995). Measures in health psychology portfolio. UK: Windsor]. The third was the Social Support Questionnaire (SSQ) whose items emerged through a semi-structured interview and was designed to measure levels of received and sought social support. The purpose of the study was to ascertain the extent to which previous findings concerning acculturation can be generalised to a Chinese immigrant population in Northern Ireland, a country characterised by segregation. T-tests, correlation analyses and a hierarchical regression initially provided support for the generalisability of previous studies on the health benefits of integration as a preferred acculturation strategy [Berry, J. W. (2008). Globalisation and acculturation. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 32, 328–336], but further interpretation of the results brought to light the shortcomings of this model in the context of a segregated society and the inapplicability of the GSES measure within a collectivistic immigrant population. The limitations of the study are discussed and recommendations for future research are made.     

Self-rated health,gender, and acculturative stress among immigrants in the U.S.: New roles for social support

BackgroundBased on different outcomes, immigrants to the U.S. may experience a decline in health with length of time or acculturation. Acculturative stress is often applied as an explanation for these changes and may be impacted by social supports and social networks, but more information is needed on the specific role of each. Thus far little research has examined acculturative stress and health by both ethnicity and gender.MethodsDrawing on the 2002–2003 National Latino and Asian American Study (NLAAS), we examine data on a nationally-representative sample of foreign-born Latino (N = 1,627) and Asian (N = 1,638) adults living in the United States. We examine relationships between acculturative stress and self-rated physical and mental health, as well as the potential role of social support factors, with a primary focus on gender.ResultsAs a group Latinos report more acculturative stress than Asians. However, among Latino immigrants acculturative stress has no association with health, and for Asian immigrants there is an association with physical health among women and mental health among men – but only the latter persisted after adjusting for controls. We do find that among Latino men and women, acculturative stress is health damaging when specific types of social support are low but can even be health promoting at higher support levels.DiscussionWhile self-rated health differs among immigrant groups, we find that acculturative stress may not be the primary driving force behind these differences, but interacts with specific elements of social support to produce unique impacts on health by gender and ethnicity.     

Bilingualism in minority settings in Canada: Integration or assimilation?

This study explores social psychological correlates of bilingualism in the Canadian context. First, it investigates the relation between language confidence and identity as moderated by ethnolinguistic vitality. Second, it examines whether bilinguals can be distinguished from predominantly unilingual participants on subjective vitality and language usage and evaluates the impact of ethnolinguistic vitality on these differences. Data from Statistics Canada collected among minority Francophones outside of Quebec and minority Anglophones in Quebec (N = 7377) were used for analysis. The results show that language confidence is significantly related to levels of identity for all regions. Bilinguals are significantly distinct from predominantly monolingual participants on most factors for maintenance of identity. However, among all Francophone samples, bilinguals most resemble the French-dominant participants.     

Relationship satisfaction of European binational couples in the Netherlands

In this paper, we focus on relationship satisfaction of European binational unions. Although such couples can be considered icons of European integration, little is known about these partnerships as well as the factors affecting relationship satisfaction. We base our analysis on the Dutch data of the EUMARR-project, a unique data set on European binational unions (n = 898). We reveal that Europeans in binational unions report higher relationship satisfaction compared to Dutch individuals in binational European and uninational partnerships. Furthermore, our analysis shows that married individuals are more satisfied compared to cohabiting individuals. Finally, having children is negatively and the availability of social support positively correlated with relationship satisfaction. The presence of children shows to be especially challenging for Dutch people in binational unions.     

Re-examining public opinion preferences for migrant categorizations: “Refugees” are evaluated more negatively than “migrants” and “foreigners” related to participants’ direct,extended, and mass-mediated intergroup contact experiences

Although migrant categorizations (e.g. “migrants”, “refugees”) are often conflated in political and academic discourse, they may be ascribed to different people and inspire different preferences in public opinion. Previous research in Western Europe has identified more positive attitudes toward “refugees” than toward “migrants” due to the legitimate need for international protection of “real refugees” compared to the perceived illegitimate claims by “economic migrants”. However, little evidence suggests that the same preference also exists in Eastern European countries that have historically received smaller numbers of refugees and had fewer frequent experiences with migrants and foreigners compared to West European countries. Moreover, the term “refugee” was intensively recategorized as “bogus” and de-legitimized in East European political discourse. To provide new evidence, we conducted a pre-registered comparative survey-based study with a sample of young Slovak adults (N = 873) to compare evaluations of three commonly used migrant categorizations in Slovakia -- “refugees”, “migrants”, and “foreigners” -- on multiple attitudinal and behavioural measures. In addition, we also tested the intergroup contact hypothesis about the relationship between participants’ evaluations and their experiences of direct, extended, and mass-mediated contact with these target groups. We found that “refugees” invoked less favourable feelings, attitudes, trust, and greater social distance compared to “migrants” and “foreigners”. These evaluations related to the valence (and less to the quantity) of participants’ experience of intergroup contact. These results challenge previous findings about public opinion preferences for “refugees” over “migrants”, support the intergroup contact hypothesis, and make a case for a more contextualized research.     

Ecological Influences on Chinese Migrant Mothers’ Integration with Hong Kong

The present study uses an ecological model to understand how personal, interpersonal, and environmental factors contribute to migrant mothers’ employment readiness and their perceived integration with the host society. In the literature, successful employment, especially for recent arrivals, has proven to be important in the acculturation process. Little work has taken into account how various personal characteristics, relational factors (e.g., social capital), and neighborhood features make their contributions simultaneously. To enrich the work, this study employs survey data on 433 Chinese migrant mothers living in three low-income neighborhoods of Hong Kong. Results are supportive of the ecological model. They are favorable to the strengthening of social capital and workplace accessibility as a way to champion migrant women's integration with the host society.     

War-exposed newcomer adolescent immigrants facing daily life stressors in the United States

For adolescents new to the United States, the experience of war and acculturative stressors may play complex roles during early stages of adjustment to a new culture and country. The overall purpose of this study was to deepen understanding of the experiences of adolescents who are new to the United States, also called “newcomers”, through the examination of pre-migration war exposure and post-migration acculturative stressors as predictors of psychosocial adjustment and academic achievement. The study sample included newcomer immigrant and refugee youth (N = 184) with an average of 3.5 years in the United States. Triangulated data were collected from youth, teachers, and official school records. Results indicated that the participants who were exposed to war (N = 57) experienced more self-reported and teacher-reported anxiety, more self-reported conduct problems, and had lower academic achievement than participants who had not been exposed to war. Acculturative stressors also predicted more self-reported anxiety, conduct problems, and lower academic achievement, but only for those adolescents without war exposure, suggesting that exposure to traumatic events like war may change newcomer adolescents’ response to acculturative stressors. This may be related to the development of coping or growth that follows after trauma, which enable youth to navigate other life challenges. Understanding potential risk and resilience associated with war exposure among newly arrived students can assist clinicians, educators, and researchers in creating solutions to difficulties in psychosocial adjustment and academic performance.     

Is cultural group representation a fair option? Adolescents’ evaluations of forms of decision-making in multicultural Mauritius

Social psychological research on multiculturalism has mostly looked at recognition of differences and much less at equitable participation. The present study investigated adolescents’ fairness judgements of three democratic decision-making procedures (representative democracy, equal group representation, and proportional group representation) and one nondemocratic procedure (cultural group oligarchy) among Hindu (N = 844), Muslim (N = 630) and Creole (N = 310) adolescents in Mauritius. We examined these judgements in two different contexts (i.e. school and national), and in relation to ethnic group identification, age and gender. Results show that representative democracy was viewed as the fairest decision-making procedure and cultural group oligarchy as the most unfair one. The group representation procedures were judged as relatively unfair although there were significant differences by ethnic group, age and gender. Strength of ethnic identification was linked to higher fairness ratings of democratic group representation procedures. The results are discussed in terms of morality, group positions and ideological representations of the Mauritian nation.     

The International Friendly Campus Scale: Development and psychometric evaluation

The International Friendly Campus Scale (IFCS) was developed with a sample of 501 international students. The 18-item IFCS includes five subscales: International Center Services (α = .85), Social Engagement (α = .70), Academic Support (α = .84), Identification with Institution (α = .86), and Campus Discrimination (α = .75). The factor structure was examined and cross-validated with two randomly split samples. Moreover, multigroup confirmatory factor analyses results indicated measurement and structural invariance of the IFCS between men and women. The construct validity of the IFCS was supported by its associations with life satisfaction, positive affect, negative affect, social connection with mainstream society, academic stress, and two forms of discrimination (i.e., racial/national and language) in the expected directions. Moreover, the IFCS total score and four subscale scores added significant incremental variance in predicting life satisfaction over and above positive and negative affect. The initial psychometric evaluation indicates that the IFCS is a promising measure that could be further used to assess the international friendliness of university campuses.     

The density of social networks moderates effects of intergroup contact

This study tests how the density of the social network in which intergroup contact takes place might affect the extent to which contact improves intergroup attitudes. Having contact with more outgroup members in dense social networks, in which everybody knows each other, may reinforce contact's positive effect. In this case, outgroup contact is shared with ingroup members, which suggests positive ingroup norms toward the outgroup. Alternatively, more contact in denser networks may improve intergroup attitudes less because density may increase subtyping or reduce the salience of ethnic group memberships. These competing hypotheses are tested among white American adults in a nonprobability online sample (N = 305) and in a representative national sample (N = 1270). In both studies, contact is associated with more positive attitudes toward racial outgroups but the positive contact effect is weakened if that contact takes place in a denser social network.     

Threat and Prejudice against Syrian Refugees in Canada: Assessing the Moderating Effects of Multiculturalism,Interculturalism, and Assimilation

A survey experiment (N = 529) was used to test the moderating effects of intergroup ideologies (assimilation, multiculturalism, and interculturalism) on the relationship between social dominance orientation (SDO) and expressions of prejudice under conditions of intergroup threat. Moderated multiple regression analyses suggest a multicultural integration frame moderates the relationship between SDO and feelings toward Syrian refugees in Canada when the target outgroup is portrayed as a source of intergroup threat. This moderating effect was unique to the relationship between SDO and feelings toward Syrians and did not extend to other correlates of prejudice including beliefs in zero-sum group competition or a multicultural ideology, nor did it extend to more general measures of prejudice (i.e., attitudes toward immigrants or evaluations of intercultural contact). Findings suggest the prejudice-reducing effects of a multicultural integration narrative affect group evaluations and functions by targeting beliefs in social dominance, rather than zero-sum group competition or ideological support for cultural diversity. The results offer insights into the prejudice-reducing potential for two alternative integration narratives that are institutionalized in Canada.     

San Fancón and the Goddess of Mercy

ABSTRACT

This article examines two cases of religious syncretism among migrant and ethnic Chinese in Cuba. It shows that Chinese communities outside China, often described in popular and even in some academic discourse as inassimilable (a prejudice unfortunately assisted by the roots discourse now popular in China and elsewhere), were in fact authors of and participants in the same processes of transculturation and religious mixing as other migrants.     

Structural and normative conditions for interethnic friendships in multiethnic classrooms

Interethnic friendships between students are important for harmonious intercultural relations at school. Drawing on research on intergroup contact and cultural distance between immigrant and non-immigrant groups, we examined how structural and normative conditions in the classroom context are associated with friendships between early adolescents with and without an immigrant background in ethnically heterogeneous schools. The sample comprised 842 students (M_age = 11.50 years, SD_age = .71; 53% male) attending multiethnic schools in Southwest Germany.Results revealed that perceived positive contact norms in class and perceived cultural distance predicted friendships between immigrant and non-immigrant students in both groups, even when the ethnic composition of the classroom was taken into account. The associations were largely the same for immigrants and non-immigrants. We conclude that interventions to foster interethnic friendships should aim to reduce perceptions of cultural distance and monitor and improve contact norms in intergroup settings.     

Media Framing of Integration in Belgian Newspapers

ABSTRACT

I deconstruct the distinctive facets of mediated framing of integration through a textual analysis of Flemish newspapers. Using Entman’s framing theory, I identified four primary integration frames: Fortress Europe, Streamlined Labour, Solipsistic Representation, and Competing Integration Frames. Specifically, I describe the ambivalence of media framing, which intertextually borrows from dominant representation of (im)migrants. The papers simultaneously frame integration as an assimilative social contract to be agreed to by (im)migrants and as a responsibility of the host society to integrate (im)migrants. Counter-framing, present in all four media frames, is critical to both dismantling systemic marginalization and ameliorating processes of integration.     

Cross-cultural differences in apology

The current study examined the effects of national culture (U.S., China, and Korea) and interpersonal relationship type (a stranger and a friend) on apology. Findings revealed that participants (N = 376) from the three cultures differed in their perceptions of the offended person's emotional reaction and their propensities toward apology use (i.e., desire, obligation, and intention to apologize, as well as their perception of normative apology use). Regardless of their cultures, participants showed stronger obligation and intention to apologize to a stranger than to a friend. With regard to the intention to apologize, both American and Korean participants showed a greater discrepancy between themselves and their estimate of most people in their own culture than did Chinese participants. Although participants from the three cultures did not differ in their propensities toward apology use for a friend, both American and Chinese participants showed greater discrepancy than did Korean participants for feeling obliged to apologize to a stranger. For intention to apologize to a stranger, both American and Korean participants, compared to Chinese, showed greater discrepancy between themselves and their estimate of most people in their own culture. Other findings and implications thereof are discussed in more detail in the paper.     

Understanding transnational political involvement among Senegalese migrants: The role of acculturation preferences and perceived discrimination

In political debates, migrants’ political involvement in their countries of origin and successful adaptation to receiving countries are often portrayed as incompatible. We address this concern by examining the links between acculturation preferences, perceived discrimination, and migrants’ transnational political involvement in their country of origin. In line with collective action research, a cross-sectional questionnaire study (N = 84) among Senegalese migrants in Paris (France) and Geneva (Switzerland) examined three pathways to transnational political involvement (motivations and actual behaviour). Perceived discrimination, the grievances pathway, was positively related to both transnational motivations (but only when desire to adopt the receiving culture was low) and political behaviour in Senegal. Desire to adopt the culture of the receiving society as an acculturation preference, the embeddedness pathway, was also positively linked to transnational motivations and political behaviour. Finally, desire to maintain the culture of origin as an acculturation preference—the collective identification pathway—was unrelated to transnational political involvement. These findings underscore the compatibility of transnational political involvement in countries of origin and adaptation to receiving societies. We discuss the pivotal role of political psychology in bringing together acculturation psychology and transnationalism studies.     

Signs of transcendence? A changing landscape of multiraciality in the 21st century

The relation between multiracial identity selection and psychological outcomes related to the self and well-being was explored among minority/White biracials spanning four different mixed-race groups (n = 201): Black/Whites, East Asian/Whites, Latino/Whites, and South Asian/Whites. The mixed-race groups showed considerable variability in their selection of multiracial identity categories and different patterns of identity selection, as well as a higher overall representation of transcendent identity (i.e., identity that challenges traditional notions of race) than reported in previously published studies. Our findings demonstrated that biracial identity selection, especially when differentiating between identities that are socially validated or not socially validated by others, was related to a person's level of multiracial identity integration, identification with Whites, perceived discrimination from Whites and non-Whites, and psychological well-being. Identity selection groups did not significantly differ from each other in levels of self-concept clarity or identification with their non-White racial group. Theoretical implications for extending a multidimensional model to other mixed-race groups and redefining race as a social and cultural construction are discussed.