Acculturation Scales: Acculturation, Habits, and Interests Multicultural Scale for Adolescents

Jennifer B. Unger

Acculturation–the interchange of cultural attitudes and behaviors–involves changes in styles of speech, social behaviors, attitudes, beliefs, customs, celebration of holidays, and choices of foods and entertainment. Immigrants generally follow one of four general acculturation patterns: (1) integration –combining aspects of the new culture with aspects of the native culture; (2) assimilation –replacing the native cultural orientation with the new cultural orientation; (3) separation – retaining the native cultural orientation while rejecting the new cultural orientation; or (4) marginalization – becoming alienated from both cultures. Measuring adolescents' acculturation levels in large, population-based surveys is difficult. Most published acculturation scales for adults contain words or concepts that young adolescents cannot comprehend. Most brief acculturation scales assess only language usage, which is only one facet of the acculturation process. The Acculturation, Habits, and Interests ...

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