Fitting in (and being shut out): Exclusivity, Threat and Acculturation Expectations among Majority Members in Australia, Canada, Finland, Japan and Singapore

In this presentation we explore the nature, extent and ramifications of majority members’ expectations of immigrants’ integration and what it means to ‘fit in’ in five nations: Australia, Canada, Finland, Japan and Singapore (total N = 1359). ‘Fitting in’ was conceptualised using Leong’s (2014) social markers framework, which includes a set of attributes or markers that are seen as important for immigrants in order to be accepted like a local-born citizen. Using a common research instrument administered online to student samples, we investigated these countries’ exclusivity (a sum of the importance ratings given to all markers). We found that in immigrant-receiving nations such as Canada and Australia, majority members’ views were less exclusive, compared with those of the Japanese and Singaporean samples, and the Finnish sample was more similar to Australia and Canada. Moreover, we found that exclusivity was negatively associated with the acculturation expectation of immigrant cultural maintenance (‘preserve’) and positively associated with immigrant engagement with the host culture (‘embrace’). Finally, we found that exclusivity moderated the relationship between perceived threat and ‘preserve’ but not ‘embrace’. We discuss the utility of the social markers framework for understanding contextual differences in acculturation expectations among majority members.