Acculturation Trajectories of Turkish, Moroccan and Other European Minority Adolescents: A Contextual and Dynamic Approach

In line with a contextual and dynamic approach of entwined acculturation and developmental processes in adolescence, the acculturation orientations of minority and majority adolescents change over time as a function of (inter alia) peer norms of acculturation in culturally diverse classrooms and schools (Hillekens et al., 2018). The present study takes a more fine-grained person-centered approach of differential trajectories of acculturation and development (using latent growth curve models and latent growth mixture modelling).

Drawing on large-scale school-based panel data (i.e., an accelerated longitudinal design with 3 waves and 3 cohorts, M_ages 12, 13 and 14 at wave 1), we compared two minority subsamples in Belgian secondary schools: most devalued Moroccan and Turkish minorities (N=1189) and less devalued European minorities (N=530). We tested how acculturation orientations towards both mainstream and heritage cultures changed over a three-year time period, distinguishing differential acculturation trajectories between and within minority groups.

Our findings showed linear trends for adoption and non-linear trends for maintenance preferences across both samples. We differentiated three latent trajectories in both subsamples for mainstream culture adoption (one increasing, one stable, and one decreasing). For heritage culture maintenance, six latent trajectories were identified in the European-origin sample, whereas four latent trajectories were identified in the Turkish- and Moroccan-origin sample. Follow-up analyses predicted different trajectories as a function of minority peer presence and peer group norms of acculturation in classrooms and schools. To conclude, our findings document the dynamic and contextual nature of acculturation trajectories in minority adolescents.