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Early Child Development and Care
ISSN: 0300-4430 (Print) 1476-8275 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/gecd20
‘A day in the life’: advancing a methodology for
the cultural study of development and learning in
early childhood
Julia Gillen , Catherine Ann Cameron , Sombat Tapanya , Giuliana Pinto ,
Roger Hancock , Susan Young & Beatrice Accorti Gamannossi
To cite this article: Julia Gillen , Catherine Ann Cameron , Sombat Tapanya , Giuliana Pinto ,
Roger Hancock , Susan Young & Beatrice Accorti Gamannossi (2007) ‘A day in the life’: advancing
a methodology for the cultural study of development and learning in early childhood, Early Child
Development and Care, 177:2, 207-218, DOI: 10.1080/03004430500393763
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03004430500393763
Published online: 24 Jan 2007.
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Date: 05 September 2017, At: 14:26
Early Child Development and Care
Vol. 177, No. 2, February 2007, pp. 207–218
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‘A day in the life’: advancing a
methodology for the cultural study
of development and learning in
early childhood
Julia Gillena*, Catherine Ann Cameronb, Sombat Tapanyac,
Giuliana Pintod, Roger Hancocka, Susan Younge and Beatrice
Accorti Gamannossid
aOpen University, UK; bUniversity of British Columbia, Canada; cUniversity of Chiang
Mai, Thailand; dUniversity of Florence, Italy; eUniversity of Exeter, UK
Early
10.1080/03004430500393763
GECD_A_139359.sgm
0300-4430
Original
Taylor
02006
00
j.gillen@open.ac.uk
JuliaGillen
000002006
Childhood
and
&
Article
Francis
(print)/1476-8275
Francis
Development
Ltd
(online)
and Care
This paper explores the methodology of an ecological investigation of aspects of culture in the interactional construction of early childhood in diverse global communities: Peru, Italy, Canada, Thailand, and the United Kingdom. Regarding culture as a dynamic dimension of the child’s socialisation,
the approach taken was to film a ‘day in the life’ of a two-and-a-half-year-old girl in each location.
The principal investigators viewed these five ‘days’ and selected clips were made into a compilation
tape, to be interrogated and interpreted by the local investigators and the child’s family. These latter
reflections were also taped and then applied to a growing appreciation of the child in cultural context.
Other inter-researcher techniques were used to elucidate and explore events and values further.
Reflexive concerns as to the interplay between aims and methods in interpretive research are critical
components of this endeavour to develop new cultural understandings of the girls in context.
Keywords: Culture; Girls; Interpretive research; Methodology; Video
What we call our data are really our own constructions of other peoples’ constructions of
what they and their compatriots are up to. (Geertz, 1973, p. 9)
*Corresponding author. Centre for Research in Education and Educational Technology, Open
University, Walton Hall, Milton Keynes MK7 6AA, UK. Email: j.gillen@open.ac.uk. A translation
of this paper appears in the journal Rassegna di Psicologia, as Gillen, J., Cameron, C. A., Tapanya,
S., Pinto, G., Hancock, R., Young, S., Accorti Gamannossi, B. & Didkowsky, N. (2006). A day in
the life: advancing a methodology for the cultural study of development and learning in early
childhood. Una metodologia per lo studio culturale dello sviluppo e dell’ apprendimento nella
prima infanzia, Rassegna di Psicologia, 3.
ISSN 0300-4430 (print)/ISSN 1476-8275 (online)/07/020207–12
© 2007 Taylor & Francis
DOI: 10.1080/03004430500393763
208 J. Gillen et al.
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Project origins and aims
An inspiring issue of the journal Human Development devoted itself to recommending
the conscious broadening of the scope of early childhood development studies to
include multifarious cultural dimensions. The multidimensionality of the suggestion
is perhaps most ambitiously expressed in the title of Bornstein’s (2002) contribution
entitled, ‘Toward a multiculture, multi-age, multimethod science’. The various
contributions in that issue can be seen as fascinating responses to Woodhead’s (1999)
challenge to break away from ‘a standardised image of childhood’ by including more
recognition of diverse environments and to reflect on culture in an inclusive way (also
see Nsamenang, 1992; LeVine, 1994; Penn, 2005). The ‘Day in the Life’ project
reported on here is an offshoot of a programme of research concerned with developing new methods for the study of early childhood that involves several locations across
the globe.1 The purpose of this paper is to describe our methodology as it has developed, as part of our dialogic and reflexive approach.
Working together from origins in multiple disciplines—developmental and health
psychology, early years education and psycholinguistics—we evolved three-fold aims:
A. to explore the concept of thriving in a variety of cultural communities;
B. to further our understanding of children as social actors, interacting with others
in ways that shape culture and are shaped by culture; and
C. to develop interpretive research methods, through the application of a critical
perspective.
It should be apparent immediately that this is less a list of research questions than it
is a broad, initial shaping of our research. These aims are interwoven. Interpretive
research of the kind we are enacting in this project does not seek to pose narrow and
precise research questions, by which the scope of the project is defined in advance
(often a shaping of project method and measurement that is desirable in certain
empirical studies of course), but is rather an opening up of rich empirical data to
interpretation, where the interpretive practices themselves provide opportunities to
think reflexively about the meaning-making processes of all involved. In some studies,
the wish to achieve discretely measurable outcomes overwhelms allegiance to reflexive, interpretive approaches; see for example Weisner (2002), who investigated ecocultural contexts for young children in a variety of communities. He applied an
‘Ecocultural Family Interview’ founded upon North American conceptions of the
motivations behind ‘everyday activities’, and then in turn derives ‘scores’ for family
routines. ‘Evaluating children’s development across cultures’ then is conceived as an
achievable research aim, deliverable by outsiders in ‘cross-cultural’ studies that seek
to instantiate a universal developmental outcome (characterised there as ‘well-being’)
that varies along a dimension known as ‘community’ or ‘culture’. We agree with
Nsamenang’s (1992) alternative view of what it means to apply an ecocultural framework to developmental studies. He draws on Pence’s (1998, p. xxii) assertion that this
is ‘far more conceptual than methodological, more a call to thoughtful, systematic
awareness than an operationalised, methodological guide’.
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Methodology for cultural study of development and learning in early childhood
209
In a sense, of course, our project is ‘cross-cultural’, although we embrace the very
impossibility of direct comparisons across cultures as understood in terms of specific,
isolable ‘variables’ against ‘universals’. As we work on this project, we have come
firmly to prefer the term ‘cultural’ to ‘cross-cultural’ despite all the breadth, some
might even say vagueness, of the first term. Shore (2002) points out that after much
deconstruction of ‘culture’ within anthropology, many have become wary of the very
idea. However, we share the belief of Shore and many advocates of cultural psychology that the concept has much to contribute in early childhood research. Cole
observes: ‘There is no doubt that culture is patterned, but there is also no doubt that
it is far from uniform and that its patterning is experienced in local, face-to-face
interactions that are locally constrained’ (1997, p. 250).
If the focus is on the manifestations of culture in parent–child interactions, then
this is experienced as a duality of the ‘direct expression of parental values and beliefs’,
and the ‘less intentional structuring of the child’s developmental niche by the physical
and social resources for caretaking’ (Super & Harkness, 1991, p. 62). Culture, then
(as indeed with so many contemporary studies), is a key theme running through all
aspects of our work. One important angle for us comes from Hammel’s (1990) useful
interdisciplinary consideration of culture. Published in a journal for demographers,
his account makes use of work in social anthropology, sociology and economics, and
in its breadth of vision for the social sciences is potentially relevant to any of us
involved in studying human development. One of the key ‘components’ of his
exploration of culture and its impact on research methodology is constituted by the
following idea:
Culture is an evaluative conversation constructed by actors out of the raw materials
afforded by tradition and ongoing experience. It is continually modified by them in
processes of social interaction, and their behavior is guided by anticipation of such cultural
evaluation. (Hammel, 1990, p. 457)
This can be seen as underlying our project methodology in (at least) two ways: our
core investigative focus, and our construction of procedures. As we shall explain,
these two are also entwined.
Day in the life investigative focus: the ‘strong child’
The process of development can be understood only by … a dual research agenda. First,
one must study children engaged in their daily activities to observe the unit of child-inactivity-in-context that represents the locus of the developmental process. Second, one
must also study the cultural belief systems and institutions that are responsible for
consistency in the everyday contexts of behavior experienced by children. (Gaskins,
1999, p. 27)
A core investigative aim for us has been the exploration of the broad notion of
strength in ‘growing up well’—to use a term from Ungar’s (2005) youth resilience
research—by focusing on the interplay of the strengths of the child, in familial and
broader socio-cultural context. We seek to explore both explicit and implicit views of
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210 J. Gillen et al.
such strong children, as enacted during and subsequent to our capturing a day in each
of their lives. We consider that a participatory appreciation of development can be
applied to children, caregivers and those who seek to understand them, and that this
is likely to be the most fruitful approach within an interpretive approach to research,
(Rogoff et al., 1993; Abbott & Gillen, 1999). We are sharing Nsamenang’s (1992)
assumption that the human endeavour to raise thriving children is recognisable across
a breadth of communities, while considering that starting notions of developmental
strength in ‘growing up well’ are variable across cultures. We therefore begin by seeking to find the most appropriate phrase in each community’s language to represent
such thriving. In subsequent phases of the study these phrases are instantiated in
observations of the ‘strong’ children as they interact with the environment, including
their carers, in the course of a videoed day in their lives. Of course, a naturalistic
observation will always be unattainable, but nevertheless the day as performed may
be indicative of the family’s values and therefore part of the ‘evaluative conversation’
of culture. These data are further explored through interviews and an iterative stage
of data collection as described in the following.
We employ a range of methods that are designed to explore data from a number of
perspectives; to feature close observations, and for analysis to be ‘precise, in the sense
of being close to the thing discussed and thus being ready to take account of matters
not anticipated …’ (Becker, 1996, p. 67). We agree with Rogoff’s interrogation of an
unreflexive adherence to an ideal ‘standardization of procedures’. As she explains, ‘…
identical procedures do not necessarily have the same meanings from the perspectives
of the people who are involved’ (Rogoff, 1997, p. 267). Throughout, as human
investigators selecting and interpreting data, we are endeavouring to be conscious in
these processes. We therefore constantly set up acts of interpretation, and give selfcritical consideration to the attributions we are making to our data (Tomanovic,
2003).
Outline of methods
Phase 1: Locating research participants
An umbrella project conference at St Francis Xavier University, Canada, gave us
opportunities to meet distal co-researchers—that is, academics from different global
locations willing and able to participate in the project—and Canadian interns
resourced and trained to work with those co-researchers in those locations. Collaborating with these colleagues, we were able to draw up initial protocols, although
always emphasising the desirability of striving towards sensitivity for local interpretations. After the conference, it was these partners who located an appropriate family,
with an apparently thriving two-and-a-half-year-old girl, willing to engage in the
project. All families can be identified as functioning in middle-income range for their
context, but there was no attempt to seek any other kind of demographic or other
similarity, other than that, in the choice of gender, we sought to redress the dearth of
research applying a strength-based examination of female resilience. (Of course, no
Methodology for cultural study of development and learning in early childhood
211
sense of representative sampling could be applicable or appropriate to an interpretive
study of this kind.) We were working with families whose attitudes towards the
project were those of positive interest, rather than neutrality perhaps shading towards
negativity. Throughout, our aim has been to employ professional judgement in
context to identify instances of ‘healthy development’ in order to instantiate different
perceptions.
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Phase 2: Pre-filming—family preparation
Two researchers (either the local researcher and a Canadian intern or two local
researchers) visited the family to establish initial rapport and collect basic demographic, health and lifestyle information through a semi-structured interview. The
project aims, extents of commitment, confidentiality and rights were fully discussed
with the families. There was also a one-hour session of filming to accustom the child
and her interactants at least slightly to the experience of being followed around by a
video camera and field-note taker for an entire waking day. It is difficult to do other
than seek to be sensitive to the child’s wishes for exposure and respite while in her
presence, but all children seemed to welcome the photographic and note-taking focus
on their mundane daily activities.
Phase 3: Day in the life first iterative filming
The two researchers arrived at the family home soon after the child woke and stayed
for as much of the day as possible. Videoing, usually using a small digital camcorder,
was halted while the child was asleep or engaged in toilet activities or any other (very
rare) occasion in which a request was made for a hiatus in the taping. The children
never requested a respite. At least six hours of film was obtained in each location.
The researcher present who was not videoing quietly observed, making notes on a
spreadsheet on a clipboard, identifying the times the child changed her activity or
location and people present at the scene. He/she also wrote explanatory notes about
other activities or features of the environment to assist the distal project researchers
with their understandings. Plans of the environment were also drawn. The composition of the team could be altered in line with circumstances. For example, in one location a caregiver politely sought to engage the local researcher in lengthy conversation.
That investigator judged it wise therefore to leave the scene, with the (very capable)
Canadian intern filming, and to return later, filling in the notes through watching the
video and consulting with the intern. This approach also worked satisfactorily.
Phase 4: Selection of focal interchanges
The day in the life videos were collected and perused individually and then together
by the first and second authors. The focus was on real-time viewing and reviewing by
the investigators who are from two different cultures and disciplines. While viewing
the videos we were very dependent for understanding upon the field notes and layout
212 J. Gillen et al.
drawings to gain a sense of attunement with each ‘day’. Consensus was reached
relatively readily on selection of passages, but perhaps the cultures represented by the
investigators (the United Kingdom and Canada) were rather too closely allied for
distances in perspectives to emerge. We will return to this point later.
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Phase 5: Creation of compilation video
Working together, the principal investigators edited a half-hour compilation video of
around six approximately five-minute clips that in collaboration we considered
displayed a variety of the activities and kinds of interactions the child had engaged in
over the day, and which seemed to tap in on the family’s striving to support the
healthy development of their child. Family discussions were readily elicited by these
half-hour compilation tapes.
Phase 6: Second iterative stage
After scrutinising the compilation video, the local investigators returned to the family
with the tape. They filmed an interview during which the participants together
watched the compilation video, pausing between sections for reflexive discussions.
At the beginning was a general discussion; the protocol used by the local investigators read as follows:
Before going to the meeting, can you think of what term in your country/culture might be
most closely equivalent, the most appropriate term for the ‘strong child’? [The strong child
is a term used in a current British research project commissioned by the UK government
promoting the care of young children. (SureStart, DfES, 2003)] Arguably it contains overtones of health, the ability to act on her own initiative, and perhaps other aspects that are
valued as positive in the British context … Essentially please try and decide which is the
most appropriate generally positive adjective for your setting.
The discussion could be introduced as follows:
Firstly, we’d be grateful to hear your views on a general point. As we’ve already mentioned,
this is an international research project and of course ideas vary from country to country.
What do you think is involved in the idea of a ‘strong child’?
In Canada, a priority for this mother was for her ‘sturdy child’ to be kind, independent and sociable. In Italy, when asked the makings of a ‘bambino in gamba’, with its
connotations of thriving health, ability to act on her own initiative, self-confidence,
security, and so on, the child’s father said ‘I am convinced that our presence is fundamental … we think we are able to give her our good principles and for me this is a
good starting point’. In Thailand, familial priorities for a strong child include confidence, obedience, staying with family and self-reliance. In Peru, aunt, grandfather
and parents each played a significant role in the child’s nurturance and emphasised
traditional values. In the United Kingdom, having twins has convinced their mother
that children were ‘their own little people’, and she also stressed the impacts of the
environment on their differences.
Methodology for cultural study of development and learning in early childhood
213
The video clips were then introduced with the following protocol:
I’m going to show you some clips of [target child’s] day. We’ve selected some extracts that
will be presented chronologically. For the project, these events exemplify some of the ways
in which the child is thriving. We would appreciate it if you would explain to us a little
more about what is happening.
Try not to ask leading questions such as:
What is [target child] learning here?
What was your goal?
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If it’s necessary to prompt the discussion explain that the researchers are thousands of
miles away and they’re not familiar with some of the materials and opportunities available
to your child …
Families in each context responded with reactions to the selection of video data in
ways that often enhanced researchers’ provisional understandings. For instance, in
Canada the mother had spent a good deal of time constructing a bird house and
it seemed apparent that this was an opportunity for skill development for her
graphically gifted child, but when queried the mother indicated that there was no
pedagogical motivation in her plan to engage in the activity other than that she
had wanted to construct a bird house for some time, and this was an occasion to
do it while still supervising her children. Although the Thai family stressed obedience and family loyalty, there was little evidence of more focus on such values in
the comportment of the daily activities of the Thai child than of the other children we observed. The Italian parents expressed surprise that their noon mealtime
routine was not selected as a focal event that had evaded the note of the distal
researchers.
Finally, the sessions were ended by a general discussion, stimulated by the following questions:
Obviously we’ve missed many of the ways in which [target child] is developing as a ‘strong
child’ [or alternative phrase] or Could you just mention some of the most important things
we’ve missed out?
Was it like this for you when you were a child? or Are the child’s experiences similar to
what things were like for you when you were a child?
Parents indicated that in many respects their children were being raised much as they
personally had been raised, while also identifying influences on change from the societal context. The UK family talked about the experiences of the Second World War
of the grandparents, for instance, and the Canadian parent emphasised the dangers
to North American children of kidnappings and other societal violence not present
when the parents were growing up. The Peruvian family regretted the absence of
instruction in religious moral values in schools today.
In practice the questions posed seem to have evolved quite naturally out of the
discussion. The families demonstrably enjoyed their participation, although it would
certainly be true to say that, as we expected, some slight tensions were evinced
towards the ends of the long day of filming. The meeting afterwards was welcome and
of course the participants appreciated their gift of the compilation tape.
214 J. Gillen et al.
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Use of video in this interpretive approach
A significant strand of the methodology of this project is of course consideration of
the use of video; here we make some brief reflexive observations in terms of benefits
of using videos against challenges arising.
It is immediately apparent that this method of recording affords the opportunity to
amass rich, detailed documentation of the children’s interactions in their everyday
environment. The videos capture aspects of the multimodality of daily events that
otherwise might go un-noted (Mazakazu, 1998). A perspective upon communication
as essentially multimodal, which is perhaps particularly striking in regards to young
children (Anning & Edwards, 1999), makes a visual as well as audio record of
interactivity imperative. Aspects and artefacts of the microsystem of a toddler’s life
(Bronfenbrenner, 1979) that at first sight seem incidental, can reveal their salience
through repeated and close observation.
Young children appear to be relatively unperturbed by the persistent running of a
video camera that documents their daily activities. They quickly became accustomed
to the presence of observers and their equipment; they (and possibly even their
family) may be relatively uninhibited while being observed (Mazakazu, 1998). Of
course that is not to say that the presence of the researchers, one with video camera
and the other taking field notes, can ever be discounted even with young children, let
alone their interactants. We cannot know how the process of videoing affects what
might have happened otherwise, so it is vital not to forget the camera’s presence.
A video record has the capacity to transport an observer into the felt sense of ‘being
there’ in cultural context. Videos are useful sources for rich interpretation of events,
allowing multiple observers to view and interpret individually or in groups (Moyles
et al., 2002; Hsueh & Tobin, 2003). Great care must be taken to guard against
assumptions that in watching we ‘understand’ more than is warranted of what is
transpiring. To the extent this is possible, we seek to forestall prematurely solidifying
interpretations through our layers of critical conversations.
The practices explored during the two iterations of data collection, and the input
of the exchanges between local and distal researchers, and those between the families
and the researchers, give us a range of avenues into appreciating what might have
been difficult to deduce from watching the video footage alone. To give one small yet
telling example: in one setting it became clear to the local researchers that one child
is often videotaped by her father while dancing; both reacted to the presence of our
video camera by re-enacting this practice. Of course there must be many ways in
which we are not able to trace manifestations of such motivations.
Video-recording a full day in the child’s life has afforded us many ideas as to a
multiplicity of discrete and even new areas for investigation that it was not possible to
plan for in advance. For example, it was only when the data were first reviewed that
the project team belatedly began to realise how salient musicality was to the lives of
all our children (as indeed to all human societies; Green, 2003). At this stage a childhood music specialist joined our team and we have began to pursue this strand of
investigation (Young et al., 2004, 2005).
Methodology for cultural study of development and learning in early childhood
215
Final reflections
Our approaches to analysis are inspired by Rogoff:
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From a participation perspective, similar or contrasting processes are sought across
activities, with the generalizations being in the nature of the patterns in the dynamic
processes of activities rather than residing in the individuals or in the materials or tasks.
(1997, p. 275)
Accordingly, we are now analysing data across the locations, examining certain
patterns of interactions. As previously mentioned, a core aim that is being investigated is the development of the notion of ‘the strong child’ or its equivalent—how the
families’ declared values are evident in their interactions with the child; how the child
shapes these interactions and in turn appears to be affecting the families’ notions of
‘the strong child’, itself also perceptible as relating to the community’s broader social
values (Hancock & Gillen, 2004; Tapanya et al., 2004).
Accessing such evaluations is surely emergent in the infant’s capacity for joint
attention, along with their developing social cognition (Bruner, 1999). Achieving
intersubjectivity in cultural understandings can enhance investigations of synchrony
in young children’s interactions with family members. Interactional synchrony
between interactive partners has been shown to signify early resiliency (Tapanya &
Cameron, 2005). As access to a broader range of semiotic modes develops, there
become visible in all studied settings plentiful instances of early engagements of the
children with symbol systems, mediated by family members (Pinto & Accorti
Gamannossi, 2004; Pinto et al., 2005).
Other manifestly cultural practices are family eating events, where the ‘evaluative
conversations’ serve to outline affectionately contested boundaries as the children
and companions trade off pursuit of agendas relating to adequate nutrition with
exploration of play and other interests (Gillen & Hancock, 2005). A socio-cultural
perspective on involved artefacts as simultaneously and inextricably both material
objects and expressions of human idealisations (Cole, 1997) can further add to finegrained investigations of children shaping culture and being shaped by culture
(Hancock & Gillen, 2004).
There are many other foci of analysis and indeed frames being pursued in this project
that are beyond the scope of this article, but nonetheless our progress so far can allow
some glimpses of possibilities and indeed limitations offered by our methodology, and
it is these with which we end.
We have learned from our failures so, far as well as successes, and are now in a better
position to extend our methods to other locations—although for us ‘rigour’ in interpretative studies involves not the rigid application of set protocols, but the readiness
to adapt where this appears appropriate.
In line with the work of Tobin and colleagues (Tobin et al., 1989; Hsueh & Tobin,
2003) in developing a method of multivocal ethnography utilising videotape, we
would ideally seek to expand our interpretations by bringing the target families and
local investigators yet further into the dialogical processes of interpretations. Families
have expressed interest in watching and discussing the compilation tapes from other
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216 J. Gillen et al.
countries in videotaped interviews, as practiced by Keller et al. (2005) in their
exchanges of videodata on mother–infant interactions between West African Nso and
northern German women. Feasibly this could be extended to other audiences as
appropriate.
We believe, therefore, that this project has the potential to inform understanding of
cultural conceptions, affordances and practices as they converge with a child’s
personal propensities to cultivate an understanding of developmental resiliency.
Extended dialogues among the researchers in each culture, between them and their
research participant collaborators, and their mutually agreed upon, as well as divergent, interpretations of the observations could feasibly be developed further towards,
for example, discussion materials for families, practitioners and students of early
childhood research. Broader understandings of diversity can advance appreciation of
the interactive impacts of child, context, material culture and caregivers in the acculturation of strong children. Concerns about globalisation becoming synonymous with
North Americanisation could be attenuated by projecting light on the positive
contributions of culturally sensitive studies of children in diverse developmental
niches (Super & Harkness, 1986). Such could provide an appreciation of the multiplicity of opportunities for the development of what it takes to grow up well, in many
and varying manifestations.
In the issue of Human Development referred to above, Rogoff and Angelillo (2002,
p. 212) conceive of culture as ‘integrated constellations of community practices’. It
seems to us that the only way to see these patterns of the stars is to look, look and look
again, talking and corresponding with those who are generous enough to share their
own perspectives with us.
Note
1.
The ‘Day in the Life’ project began under the umbrella of a research development initiative—
‘Interdisciplinary examination of the role of culture on human development: an international
project for the development of new methodologies’—based at the Center for Research on
Culture and Human Development at St Francis Xavier University, Nova Scotia (directed by
T. Callaghan). Support for the project has been received from the following sources: Social
Sciences and Humanities Research Council, Canada; Human Resource Development
Canada; British Council; The Open University; University of Exeter; University of British
Columbia.
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Acculturation,
Development,
and Adaptation
Eugenio M. Rothe, MDa,*, Dan Tzuang, MDb,
Andres J. Pumariega, MDc,d
KEYWORDS
! Culture ! Acculturation ! Childhood ! Development
Acculturation refers to the process that occurs when groups of individuals of different
cultures come into continuous first-hand contact, which changes the original culture
patterns of either or both groups. The encounter causes cultural diffusion of varying
degrees and may have one of 3 possible outcomes: (1) acceptance, when there is
assimilation of one group into the other; (2) adaptation, when there is a merger of
the 2 cultures; and (3) reaction, which results in antagonistic contra-acculturative
movements.1 Acculturation is a concept that applies to individuals living in communities other than where they were born, such as immigrants, refugees, and asylum
seekers. It does not apply to groups whose ancestors were subjected to involuntary
subjugation in their own land, such as Native Americans, or to individuals whose
ancestors were brought to the United States by force and subjugation, such as African
Americans. Today more than ever before acculturation has become a relevant
concept as a result of the phenomenon of globalization, which defines the sociocultural climate of the twenty-first century.
Globalization occurs when there is an acceleration of movement of people, products, and ideas between nations.2 It is characterized by an increase in fluidity between
the financial and political borders between countries, which in turn increases the
complexity of the everyday problems that are faced by the inhabitants of the countries.
Another important aspect of globalization has been the increase in large migrations in
the last decades, predominantly from poor countries to more developed ones, like the
United States.3 Historically, federal legislation has played a significant role in this
process. In 1965, President Lyndon Johnson signed the Hart-Celler Act, also known
as the Immigration and Nationality Act, which abolished racial discrimination in
a
Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine, Florida International University, Miami, FL, USA
Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Stanford University School of Medicine, Psychiatry and
Behavioral Sciences Building, 401 Quarry Road, Stanford, CA 94305, USA
c
Temple University School of Medicine, Philadelphia, PA, USA
d
Department of Psychiatry, The Reading Hospital and Medical Center, Sixth Avenue & Spruce
Street, West Reading, PA 19611, USA
* Corresponding author. 2199 Ponce de Leon Boulevard, Suite 304, Coral Gables, FL 33134.
E-mail address: erothe@fiu.edu
b
Child Adolesc Psychiatric Clin N Am 19 (2010) 681–696
doi:10.1016/j.chc.2010.07.002
childpsych.theclinics.com
1056-4993/10/$ – see front matter ! 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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immigration law. As a result, each independent nation had a yearly quota of 20,000,
whose children, parents, and spouses could enter as legal immigrants. This legislation
had a significant effect in certain immigrant populations. For instance, the ethnic
Chinese population in the United States almost doubled each decade after the act
was passed, although Chinese people accounted for only one-tenth of 1% of the population in the 1960 census.4
As a result of their arrival and resettlement in the United States, immigrants usually
undergo varying degrees of acculturation stress, which leads to alterations in the
person’s mental health status.5 These alterations may improve or worsen with the
person’s later acculturation and adaptation to the United States.
THE NEW DEMOGRAPHICS OF THE UNITED STATES
Until the mid-twentieth century, the United States received predominantly European
immigrants, whose racial and cultural characteristics allowed them to assimilate
rapidly into the American social fabric. In the past 40 years, immigration from Europe
and Canada has declined dramatically, and non-European immigration has increased
faster.
The foreign-born population in the United States increased by 57% in the last
decade, compared with only a 9.3% growth of the US native population. By the
year 2050, European-origin Americans will no longer be the numerical majority; this
will happen before 2030 among children younger than 18 years and is already true
among 6-year-olds.6 Most of the new immigrants to the United States describe themselves as nonwhite, and immigrants from the Caribbean and Central and South America are the most racially mixed, with less than 45% self-reporting as white. The United
States faces a rapidly changing demographic landscape with an increasing multiracial
and multicultural population. These changes largely result from 3 major factors: (1)
progressive aging and low birth rate of its European-origin population; (2) lower
mean ages and increasing birth rates in non-European minority groups; and (3) a significant increase in immigration from Latin America, Asia, and Africa. These growing
populations of children are diverse in their racial, ethnic, national origin, immigration,
and socioeconomic makeup. However, as a group, they are different from the older,
European-origin, white, and higher socioeconomic mainstream population.
CULTURE AND IDENTITY
Hughes7 defines culture as a socially transmitted system of ideas that: (1) shapes
behavior, (2) categorizes perceptions, (3) gives names to selected aspects of experience, (4) is widely shared by members of a particular society or social group, (5) functions as an orientational framework to coordinate and sanction behavior, and (6
conveys values across the generations. Cultural process refers to the fluid and
ever-changing characteristics of a culture that responds to changes in the historical
and cultural contexts in which cultures are imbedded. Hughes7 considers that it is
more accurate to refer to a particular group’s cultural process, rather than a group’s
culture, which implies that it is stationary. However, in this article the term culture
is used, although what is implied is cultural context.
In childhood, from the age of 3 to 4 years old, children are already capable of detecting differences in language use, and between 4 and 8 years of age children develop
a sense of ethnic identity. They identify as members of a particular ethnic group,
they consolidate a sense of group identity, and they develop curiosity about other
groups that are different from their own.8
Acculturation, Development, and Adaptation
Identity formation has been historically viewed as one of the principal tasks of the
passage into adulthood. The concept of identity is composed of individual and social
components and is closely related to the culture. Erikson9 conceptualized identity as
resulting from the dynamic interplay between the individual and his group and cultural
context, and added that identity development is the central task of adolescence that
(1) optimally results in a coherent and self-constructed dynamic organization of drives,
abilities, beliefs, and personal history and that (2) functionally guides the life course.10
However, this concept of the universality of development, representative of the
modernist European tradition, has been vigorously challenged. It has been considered
to be based on male oriented and Western values that are more descriptive of the
white mainstream majority in the United States. The critics of this model postulate
that it may not adequately represent the experiences of members of minority groups,
such as adolescents born to immigrant families. The postmodernist tradition suggests
the opposite. It argues that identity formation is idiosyncratic and that it is different
each time, and particular to every individual. In a review of the literature, Schwartz
and Montgomery11 were unable to find any empiric studies supporting the postmodernist tradition; instead, their research supports a third alternative hypothesis, which
argues that the fundamental structure of identity is consistent, but it is also influenced
by variables that are particular to the individual and take into account the different
styles of acculturation. Taking this third model into account, Schwartz and
colleagues12 regard identity as “the organization of self-understandings that define
one’s place in the world”(p5). They conclude that identity is a synthesis of personal,
social, and cultural self-conceptions. Identity has been divided into (1) personal identity, which refers to the goals, values, and beliefs that the individual adopts and holds,
(2) social identity, which refers to the interaction between the personal identity and the
group with which one identifies, and (3) cultural identity, which refers to the sense of
solidarity with the ideas, attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors of the members of a particular cultural group. There is often confusion between the terms cultural identity and
ethnic identity. Ethnicity refers to the cultural, racial, religious, and linguistic characteristics of a people,13 and ethnic identity refers to the subjective meaning of one’s
ethnicity. Ethnic identity is contained within the broader concept of cultural identity,
which refers to specific values, ideals, and beliefs belonging to the particular cultural
group. Ethnic identity has always been a socially constructed product, which is
affected by several variables. It can recede into the background, or it can become
an engulfing concern.
Case 1
Ives, a 17-year-old Haitian adolescent, was sent away by his family to a prestigious
boarding school in the midwest United States, to protect him from violence and the
possibility of being kidnapped in Haiti. His father occupied an important government
position on the island and the family belonged to the mulatto aristocratic class. Ives
was unable to adapt or fit in at the school. He complained that his peers “were not
used to dealing with an educated black person and didn’t know what to do with
me,” and that they talked down to him and treated him with fear and contempt. He
added that he could not find anything in common with the American blacks who
attended the school, most of whom came from poor families, had come from the adjacent urban ghettos, and were studying on scholarship. Ives became depressed and
suicidal at the school and eventually moved to Miami, where he began residing with
extended family and attending day school. At this time, Ives was also seen in weekly
psychotherapy. Immediately, he began to question his Hispanic male therapist about
the perceptions his therapist had of him, given that both were of a different culture and
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race, and together they were able to explore his emotional pain, his sense of alienation, and his fears of rejection. Ives slowly became aware that sometimes he presented with a hostile attitude toward others, which was a defense against the
anticipation of being rejected, and realized that this attitude kept people away from
him. Slowly, Ives became less defensive and together with his therapist began discussing Haitian culture and history. Ives also developed an interest in the short stories of
Haitian folk author Edwidge Danticat, which he described and discussed during the
therapy sessions. One day, after several months in psychotherapy, he told his therapist “I had never given much thought to the fact that I’m black until I came to the United
States. I have now discovered that I am ‘Black and Haitian’. I feel proud of my heritage,
because Haiti was the first free Black Republic in the world. Now I feel more Haitian
than ever, and in Miami I have found enough people that are like me. Yet, I am also
beginning to feel like an ‘American’. I consider that the United States is my home
and I have no interest in ever going back to live in Haiti.” In the therapy, and with
the help of the supportive community of compatriots in Miami, Ives was able to
discover new aspects of his ethnicity and culture of origin; these identity fragments
became integrated into a new, richer, and more cohesive sense of self. In turn, this
allowed him to successfully integrate to his new peer group, which included adolescents of various ethnic origins and nationalities.
The concept of identity functions as a regulatory social-psychological structure and
is particularly pertinent to immigrant people, who are trying to locate themselves
between the culture of origin and the host culture, and who are trying to maintain
a sense of self-consistency and consider new possibilities.12
The Stresses of Immigration
DeVos14 and Ogbu15 describe 3 themes that have a determining effect on the adaptation and identity formation of the immigrant child and his or her family.
1. Under what circumstances does the immigrant enter the host culture (voluntary
migration vs forced migration, conqueror vs slave)?
2. Is there a structural ceiling (social hierarchy) above which the immigrant cannot
rise, regardless of effort, talent, or achievement?
3. Is there a cultural ethos or stereotype that fits the immigrant, from which he or she
cannot separate?
At times, a person who is regarded by the majority culture as a member of a particular ethnic group or who regards himself or herself as of a particular ethnicity may find
his or her identity changed by the immigration process.
Most immigrants that come to the United States are financial immigrants who have
fled poverty in their country of origin in search for a better life. However, because of the
changing immigration landscape influenced by federal law, there is tremendous diversity among immigrants and their levels of education. Amongst Asian Americans, firstgeneration experiences vary tremendously, ranging from initial penniless Chinese
immigrants who came to work on America’s railroads and gold mines in the 1800s,
to more recent patterns of college-educated professionals from Taiwan, China, Korea,
and India who came to pursue graduate degrees and stayed, versus the experiences
of those in the Hmong, Laotian, and Cambodian populations who may have entered
the United States to seek political asylum from their war-torn home countries.
However, overall it can be said that the immigrant experience is one of the most
stressful experiences a family can undergo. It removes the family from their relationships, friends, neighbors, and members of the extended family. It also removes the
Acculturation, Development, and Adaptation
family from their community, jobs, customs, and sometimes language, placing them in
a strange and unpredictable environment.16
Garza-Guerrero17 constructed a theoretic model to understand culture shock,
a phenomenon that immigrants experience when they first encounter the new culture.
He describes 2 elements that are the hallmark of culture shock: (1) mourning, related to
the loss of the culture, country, language, friends, and predictable environment; and
(2) the vicissitudes of identity, in the face of the threat of a new culture. He divides
culture shock into 3 phases: (1) the cultural encounter, (2) reorganization, and (3)
a new identity. If completed successfully, this process leads to personal growth and
an enrichment of the self. This process of culture shock closely resembles the process
of adolescence itself, and presents a double developmental challenge to the immigrant adolescent.
Case 2
Juan, a 13-year-old adolescent arrived in Boston abruptly with his mother and 3
brothers following a marital dispute caused by his father’s infidelity. The family began
residing in the small one-bedroom apartment of his aunt and cousin, which soon led to
tensions. Juan and his brothers struggled to fit into a multiethnic, inner-city school,
where his difficulties were aggravated by his poor command of English. Juan became
aggressive and joined a school gang. He was referred to therapy by his pediatrician,
who believed that Juan was depressed and experiencing auditory and visual hallucinations. Juan presented as an angry and despondent adolescent, who missed his
father and his home life in Puerto Rico. One day he told his psychiatrist about a dream
he had had the night before: “I dreamt that my brothers and I were riding on a train, that
we fell off and found ourselves trudging through a marsh that never seemed to end.
Suddenly, we were attacked by three men that were wearing masks. We fought
with them and their masks fell off. One man was blond, the other man was black,
and the third one was Chinese.”
Juan’s dream is an example of the first phase of culture shock, the cultural
encounter, which is characterized by a sense of confusion that results when aspects
of the old culture are compared with aspects of the new, host culture. The discrepancy
that results from the comparison may lead to feelings of disorientation, loss, mourning,
and helplessness. Often in these situations, aggression becomes a defense against
helplessness, which may explain Juan’s acting-out behaviors. If these feelings of
aggression are projected outwards, some aspects of the new, host culture may be
perceived as persecutory. Juan’s persecutory feelings and his feelings of helplessness
and social alienation may serve to explain why he joined a gang. The gang provided
him with a peer group that offered protection and also validated his feelings and his
defensive acting-out behaviors.
ACCULTURATION ACROSS HISTORY: CHANGING VIEWS
The history of the United States is a history of immigration. The massive migrations
that have shaped the identity of the United States throughout its history as a nation
have often given rise to nativist movements, whose goal has been to stop or decrease
immigration. They are led by the previously settled inhabitants, who perceive a threat
to their established customs, or fear competition in their job markets. These fears are
often enhanced by the high fertility rates found among immigrant minority groups and
lower fertility rates found among the more established groups.18 These historical
events contributed to the notion that the best way to enter into the American culture
was to assimilate, totally renouncing the culture of origin and immediately becoming
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American. This model applied well to immigrants arriving from Europe in the 1800s and
into the twentieth century. Most of these immigrants had similar ethnic characteristics
and often Americanized their names, forming the American melting pot. The term
acculturation was first used in 1936 by a group of anthropologists of the Social
Sciences Research Council, and became an issue of wide discussion after the burgeoning refugee and immigrant resettlement crisis generated after World War II.19
The acculturation process causes change not only in the immigrant but also in the
receiving culture, leading to a process of interculturation. Immigrants often choose
one of several acculturation strategies: (1) cultural maintenance (choosing to what
extent cultural characteristics are important to maintain), (2) cultural participation
(determining how they participate with members of the host culture, or remain among
themselves), (3) integration (equivalent to assimilation), and (4) marginalization
(choosing to segregate themselves from the host culture).5 The United States is an
ethnically complex society, so rather than understanding acculturation as a uniform
and linear phenomenon, Portes and Rumbaut20 have proposed the concept of
segmented acculturation. Their research has mapped segments of immigrants with
different patterns of acculturation in the United States, whose differences are determined by factors that are intrinsic to the immigrant, as well as factors that are intrinsic
to the particular area of the host country to which the immigrant has arrived. For
example, an immigrant from a rural area in Cambodia arriving in Oregon has a different
acculturation experience to that of an Eastern European professional arriving in
a northeastern American city to further his professional training.
Effects of Acculturation on Children, Adolescents and Their Families
The family is the primary context in which the child grows, develops an identity, is
socialized, is hurt and healed, and struggles with powerful developmental issues.21
There is an abundant literature describing how people of different cultures express
their distress.22,23 The process of immigration causes intrafamilial stressors that result
from the process of acculturation, because family members frequently have different
levels of acculturation and family bonds can be threatened by conflicting acculturation
responses. In addition, sometimes even members of the third and fourth generation
may still differ from the dominant culture in their customs, values, and behaviors.
For example, Cespedes and Huey24 found that Hispanic female adolescents experienced more discrepancy in gender roles between themselves and their parents
than Hispanic male adolescents. These discrepancies led to increased levels of
depression and poorer family functioning for Hispanic girls, but not for boys. Romero
and colleagues25 reported similar findings for Hispanic female adolescents, but found
that bicultural stress and depression affected Asian female adolescents even more,
when both groups were compared with European Americans.
For Asian Americans in particular, there is the added stress of being looked on as
the model minority, which has progressively been debunked but still casts long
shadows. Originally coined by sociologist William Peterson in the 1960s to describe
Japanese Americans who had assimilated successfully into American culture, this
catch phrase was reapplied by the media in the 1980s to expound on the educational
triumphs of Asian Americans.4 Although some Asian Americans may take pride in the
model minority image, the general consensus in academia and Asian American
studies is that this image is detrimental to Asian Americans because it can lead to stereotyping and to viewing Asian Americans as a uniform group. This may affect
resources allotted by federal assistance programs to Asian ethnic subgroups in
need. In addition, the model minority myth may play a significant role in Asian
American mental health. Asian American scholars have postulated that the pressures
Acculturation, Development, and Adaptation
exerted by Asian-American parents on their children, so they will do well in school can
lead to increased suicide rates.26 Among 15- to 24-year-old women, Asian Americans
have the highest rates (14.1%) of suicide deaths compared with other racial groups in
the United States. Asian American men of the same age have the second-highest rate
of suicide deaths, at 12.7%.27 Despite these alarming statistics and other mental
health problems such as depression, there is still consistent underuse of mental health
resources by Asian Americans across the United States.28
Case 3
Joann is a 17-year-old Asian American adolescent girl of Vietnamese descent who
presented to the outpatient clinic after her mother brought her in for evaluation of
“academic problems.” Her mother was primarily concerned that Joann’s grades
had fallen from As to Bs and Cs during her junior year of high school, and that her
poor performance would adversely affect her chances of entrance to a prestigious
university and becoming a lawyer. Joann had been reporting problems concentrating
and after some hesitation, her family decided that it was time to get her some help. She
was seen by a psychiatrist and was diagnosed with clinical depression and eating
disorder. She also had difficulty sleeping, decreased appetite, and had been exercising 2 to 3 hours a day in an effort to “look like Asian girls should.” She reported
passive suicidal ideations, with occasional cutting that was unknown to her parents.
Joann came from a middle-class blended family, and her mother had recently given
birth to a younger half-brother, who “is treated like a prince.” She had limited knowledge of her biologic father until this past year, when he contacted her without her
mother’s knowledge, and she learned that he lived in a different part of the state
and had difficulty maintaining consistent employment. Joann felt that she was not
able to really talk to her parents about how sad and confused she felt in relation to
her recent reconnection with her father. “All they want to talk about is grades, and
how I need to do well on my SATs or I won’t get accepted into UC Berkeley or Stanford.” She felt the only person in whom she could confide was her boyfriend. Joann
was sexually active with him and they practiced the rhythm method of contraception.
She constantly felt insecure “because I just worry he’s going to leave me for a hotter,
skinnier Asian girl.” Joann and her mother reluctantly engaged in therapy and were
firmly against psychopharmacologic intervention. “I don’t want to take medications
just because I’m messed up. I should be able to handle this. and no way am I going
to take medications. My parents are definitely against anything that’s not ‘natural’.”
Several factors in Joann’s case are commonly encountered by clinicians when treating Asian American teens: parental and societal pressures to succeed, in addition to
parental focus on academic success, without attention to emotional well-being,
compounded by stigma against mental health treatment. Clinicians treating Asian
Americans should be aware of how these cultural demands may play an important
role in the mental health of this population.
One of the functions of the parents in the family is to teach and to provide leadership
and guidance in firm but loving ways. This capacity can be weakened by immigration.
If there are disagreements between parents and children about the basic blueprint of
how the family should operate, this can be destructive and may lead to triangulation
among the different family members. Family factors have a direct effect on the development of adverse outcomes of children and adolescents, and exert a strong influence in which behaviors endure and are linked to adolescent substance-abuse
disorders and delinquency.29 Also, family functioning and acculturation often have
a circular effect on one another. For example, Hovey and King30 described how low
levels of family functioning increase acculturative stress, which in turn leads to
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depressive symptoms in the adolescents of immigrant families. Also, Duarte and
colleagues31 found that low parental acculturation was associated with more antisocial behaviors in Puerto Rican adolescents living in New York City, as well as in Puerto
Rico. Conversely, adaptive family processes can serve as a protective factor in highrisk environments and alleviate adolescent problems that have already surfaced. For
example, Liu and colleagues32 studied Chinese immigrant families residing in the
United States and found that adolescents with Chinese mothers who were more
acculturated, had higher levels of maternal monitoring of their children, and used
less harsh discipline had lower levels of conduct problems. In a recent Harvard study
of high-school students,33 Asian American students who participated and reported
symptoms of depression had higher grades than their peers but reported more
concern about academic factors and also felt that their parents were not interested
in their emotional lives.
Language barriers sometimes result in disempowering the parents of immigrant
children. For example, parents of minority children are expected to advocate on behalf
of their children in schools and in neighborhoods that are often filled with discrimination and prejudice. A good command of the English language is often necessary to
undertake these tasks. Liu and colleagues34 found that Chinese mothers who were
more proficient in English tended to have children with higher academic scores and
fewer depressive symptoms. In addition, these researchers found that proficiency in
both English and the native Chinese language was a protective factor against depression for foreign-born young Chinese people, more than for young Chinese people born
in the United States.
Among immigrant families, it is not unusual for a disciplinary meeting to take place at
school in which the child serves as the translator between the parents and the school
teacher or principal, thus undermining the hierarchical structure of the family and
compromising the executive power of the parents in the eyes of the school authorities.
Parents of different cultures also relate differently to institutions. In some cultures,
such as among members of the Asian cultures, institutions are greatly respected
and considered sacred and never challenged. There are also countries, such as Haiti,
where citizens have been subjected to centuries of abuse and persecution. It is not
uncommon for psychiatrists to come into contact with Haitian immigrants who may
initially perceive American institutions as potentially cruel and persecutory, and relate
to them with fear and distrust. This fear and distrust also permeate the therapeutic
relationship; the psychiatrist often has to use tact, empathy, patience, and perseverance to overcome this resistance. These distorted perceptions can undermine the
parents’ capacity to advocate for their children in the new, host culture. The family
member with the greatest competence in the mainstream American culture is the
best prepared to negotiate with powerful extrafamilial systems, such as courts,
schools, and social agencies.31
Language and Ethnicity in the Second Generation
Acquisition of unaccented English has been, and continues to be, the litmus test
of citizenship in the United States. In no other country are languages extinguished
with such speed.35 For immigrants, the switch to English is both an empiric fact
and a cultural requirement demanded of those who have sought a new life in
America. Kataoka and colleagues36 found that in California, students with lower
English-language proficiency had a disproportionate impairment in difficulties
with grades. Outside the ethnic enclaves that exist in the United States, to speak
English only is a prerequisite for social acceptance and integration, and those who
try to educate their children in their mother tongue confront immense pressure for
Acculturation, Development, and Adaptation
social conformity from peers, teachers, and the media. Portes and Rumbaut20
explain that “In a country lacking centuries old traditions, and simultaneously
receiving thousands of foreigners from the most diverse lands, language homogeneity has been seen as the bedrock of nationhood”(p96).
Several empiric studies highlight that the first generation of immigrants learns
enough English to survive economically, the second generation (born in the United
States to immigrant parents) may use the parental tongue at home but use English
in school, and in the third generation, the home language and mother tongue shift
to English.35 Language use can also have subtle connotations in everyday life in America. Waters37 studied first- and second-generation blacks in New York City and noted
that middle-class blacks convey, through the use of mainstream English, verbal and
nonverbal cues that they are not from the ghetto and that they disapprove of
ghetto-specific behavior.
Language retention is closely related to socioeconomic variables. For example,
immigrant children growing up in impoverished communities receive no encouragement to retain their parents’ native language, because the native language is stigmatized as a symbol of lower status.35 This is the case in second-generation Haitian
young people in Miami, who rapidly shed Haitian Creole for English and prefer to be
identified as African American, rather than Haitian American.
Portes and Stepic38 studied language use in Miami, Florida. They found that
Spanish was alive and well among first-generation Cuban immigrants, but that
language retention decreased in proportion to the length of stay in the United States.
They found that despite the economic prosperity, excellent self-esteem, and social
support offered by the Cuban ethnic enclave in Miami, 90% of second-generation
Cubans preferred to communicate in English.
The interplay between the immigrant parents and their children in the second
generation also accounts for the type of “goodness of fit”39 that occurs in the acculturation process into the United States. Generational consonance occurs when
parents and children acculturate at the same rate, or when the parents encourage
selective acculturation among the second generation, such that the cultural harmony
between parents and children is maintained, allowing the children to adapt to their
new American reality. Cultural dissonance occurs when the second generation is
neither guided nor accompanied by the changes in the first generation. Consonant
resistance to acculturation occurs among isolated immigrant groups that are strongly
oriented toward return and view their presence in the host society as temporary,
such as exiles.20
Case 4
Kathy (Ekaterina), an 18-year-old adolescent girl, emigrated from Russia to Miami with
her family at the age of 7 years. Kathy was referred for psychotherapy because of
oppositional-defiant behavior at home and difficulties getting along with her parents.
Kathy shared with her Hispanic male therapist that she felt “very American,” and
added “I feel embarrassed to take anyone to visit my home, because my parents
barely speak English and they insist on speaking to me in Russian in front of my
friends. It makes me stand out and feel different and I don’t like it. I just want to be
a regular person, like everyone else. My parents don’t make any effort to fit in, they
just hang out with other Russian people and they don’t understand anything about
my life, it’s like they live in another planet.”
This case presents an example of how language use increases the cultural dissonance between 2 generations of an immigrant family. This dissonance leads to feelings
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of alienation in the adolescent, who lacks the necessary guidance and protection that
parents are able to provide during the adolescent passage.
RESILIENCY AND RISK
Second-generation children (American-born offspring of immigrants) have been found
to be at higher risk of more behavioral conditions, such as substance abuse, conduct
disturbance, and eating disorders, than the first generation of immigrant young
people.31,40,41 In some groups, such higher risk may be a result of this group facing
the chronic stresses created by poverty, marginalization, and discrimination without
the secure identity and traditional values of their parents, when they do not yet have
a secure bicultural identity and skills. Garcia and Lindgren42 studied Hispanic families
and found that adolescents boys reported that having to work in addition to or instead
of going to school to provide financially for the family was the key stressor of immigration, whereas the girls complained about losing relationships and mothers spoke
about the fears of deportation, listing names of friends who had been deported.
Also, Pumariega and colleagues43 found that second-generation Mexican Americans
who had an overreliance on peers, were more exposed to the media, and spent less
time with their families and in religious activities had a significantly higher risk of
substance abuse and suicidality44 than more traditional young people born and living
in Mexico. Various studies have shown greater risk for eating disorders in more acculturated immigrant young people both in the United States and in Europe.44 This situation may hold particularly true for Asian Americans, who face the double pressure of
perfectionism brought on by the expectations of the model minority myth and the glorification of the perfect body image. Low self-esteem and personal identity confusion
can result from feeling marginalized and discriminated against and often lead to
substance abuse, increased sexual risk-taking behavior, conduct problems, and
poor school performance45; acculturation orientation has been associated with prosocial behaviors.46 Being the victim of racism has been associated with low self-esteem,
depression, poor school performance, and poor school motivation, as well as
increased parent-child conflicts.47 Some second-generation immigrants seem to be
more vulnerable to the effects of racism than those who were born outside the United
States. For example, US-born Chinese people reported experiencing more discrimination than those who were born in Asia.48 Yet, Chinese-Americans who remained
close to the Chinese culture experienced less depressive symptoms than those
who reported feeling more dissociated from the Chinese culture.49 Also, self-esteem
proved to be the most important protective factor against substance abuse among
Hispanic adolescents who resided in monocultural Hispanic households.50
Racism, discrimination, and social marginalization among minority adolescents
often lead to the development of adversarial identities, such as affiliation with gangs.
The adolescent who feels marginalized and discriminated, lacking opportunities for
upward mobility and who belongs to a racially unmeltable minority group, seeks validation from peers, standing in defiance of the values of the mainstream majority
culture.51
Adolescent refugees have also been found to be at high risk for mental health
problems, especially posttraumatic stress disorder and depression. These problems
are often unrecognized by parents and teachers, and culturally competent mental
health services for refugees are often lacking.52,53
The degree of closeness among family members varies according to whether the
family functions as a nuclear or extended network system. Some Hispanic and Asian
families function as extended families, and thus mothers and grandmothers act as
Acculturation, Development, and Adaptation
coparents to the children. In these families, the failure to involve key family members in
therapy, such as grandmothers, can lead to sabotage of the therapy by the excluded
member. Also, the degree of closeness among family members and the sense of filial
duty tend to be greater in extended families. Rodriguez and Weisburd54 reported that
adolescents who are closer to their families are also less reliant on their peers. When
the level of family bonding is high, adolescents tend to find peers whose values and
beliefs are similar to those of their families. This tendency can serve as a protective
factor, but may also slow down acculturation. A greater degree of acculturation is
also inversely related to family obligations, because immigrants frequently transition
from an extended family network system more commonly found in developing countries, to a nuclear family, which is more commonly found in industrialized societies.
Loyalty and conformity are also influenced by how authority is handled in the family.
Some cultures have families in which authority is linear and hierarchical, maintaining
traditional gender roles, whereas others are more egalitarian and emphasize negotiation. Sometimes, immigration-related changes in parental authority and communication can undermine the traditional family structure and lead to family deterioration. For
example, language can present a concrete obstacle to communication among the
members of different generations within the immigrant family. If well-acculturated
adolescents speak only English and parents and grandparents speak only the
language of the country of origin, this diminishes the amount of communication. Interests and shared experiences decrease, and the parents and children may feel a sense
of distancing that makes them believe that they are living in different worlds. Szapozcnik and colleagues29 studied Cuban families with poorly acculturated parents who
spoke little English and with well-acculturated adolescents who spoke little Spanish.
They found that these adolescents felt alienated from their parents, had an overreliance on their peer group, and gravitated toward peers who felt equally alienated.
These adolescents were found to be more at risk for depression, substance abuse,
and delinquent acting-out behaviors. In contrast, German and colleagues55 found
that among Mexican American adolescents, higher levels of family involvement acted
as a protective factor against deviant peer affiliation, and accounted for lower levels of
conduct problems and externalizing behaviors. Zayas and colleagues56 reported that
among Hispanic adolescent females who attempted suicide, less mutuality between
mothers and daughters increased suicide risk, whereas increased communication
between mothers and daughters served as a protective factor against suicide. In addition, McHale and collegues57 reported less depression and involvement in risky
behaviors among Mexican American adolescents who were well supervised by their
parents, as well as more involvement in academic activities when the parents valued
the importance of education.
In addition to family integrity, love, and supportive communities, school has been
found to play an important role in the resiliency of immigrant and second-generation
adolescents in the United States. The Longitudinal Immigrant Student Adaptation
Project (LISA)58 showed that immigrant families place their hopes of improvement
on providing a better education for their children. Dominican immigrants in New
York City have the third-lowest level of educational attainment of all immigrants to
the United States. However, in less than one generation, their children accomplish
the highest level of school retention and the highest percentage of high-school
completion of all the immigrant groups in the New York public school system.59
This “Dominican miracle in New York”60 supports the finding that success in school
is one of the most important predictors of psychosocial adaptation for first- and
second-generation immigrant children to American society. Immigrant children who
succeeded in school also became more connected to their ethnic communities.
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Rather than shamefully distancing themselves from the cultural heritage of their
parents, these children saw success in school as payback for their parents’ efforts
and sacrifices, and as a way to make their community proud of their success.58
MEASURING ACCULTURATION
Acculturation is a complex construct that presents a challenge to investigators
because it encompasses socioeconomic, historical, political, and psychodynamic
variables. For this reason, the study of acculturation has become of interest to the
fields of sociology, political science, economics, and the mental health sciences.
The inherent complexity of how culture influences cognitive mechanisms and human
behavior may help to explain the proliferation of acculturation measures and the lack
of substantive reviews of the literature that evaluate the specificity and validity of these
measures. The understanding of acculturation has evolved from a linear concept to
a multidimensional process of confluence between the cultural-heritage community
and the cultural-receiving community. In the linear model of acculturation, the components of acculturation that are assumed to change are (1) language and (2) cultural
practices. In most of these studies, greater acculturation is associated with negative
outcomes, a concept known as the immigrant paradox.61,62 However, Schwartz and
colleagues63 highlight that it is not clear whether the negative outcomes that appear
with progressive acculturation are caused by acquiring new practices, or to losing
the practices of the heritage culture. These investigators add that it is also not clear
whether immigrants should be discouraged from acquiring new practices, or encouraged to preserve the old ones. Escobar and Vega19 have concluded that little explanatory power is added to psychiatric epidemiologic studies by the inclusion of
multidimensional acculturation scales. Instead, when conducting epidemiologic
studies, the preferred language, the person’s place of birth, and number of years
residing in the United States are frequently used as proxies for acculturation. They
are used as dependent variables that have consistent main effects on problems
such as drug use and psychiatric disorders. Preferred language and place of birth
are also stronger predictors when using multivariate models to predict health
outcomes. However, Schwartz and colleagues63 argue that the linear model of
studying acculturation misses multiple dimensions that are involved in acculturation.
In terms of language use, these investigators propose that some immigrants may
identify with their culture of origin, yet not be proficient in their heritage language,
such as many Asians in the United States. In terms of ethnic identification, traditionally
most white non-Hispanics have identified themselves as American. However, with the
changing racial composition of the United States, it is unclear whether in the future
people who reside in the United States will continue to equate American with white.
Cultural values are assumed to change when the person acculturates. Some of the
values that have been attributed to certain immigrant groups are also common to other
groups. Schwartz and colleagues63 argue that more than being characteristic of any
ethnic group in particular, these values may be common to people who emigrate
from collectivist, agricultural societies to individualistic, industrialized societies, and
that it is important for acculturation measures to take into account the context of
reception of the host country, for example, if the immigrant is arriving in a rural,
possibly more closed community versus an urban, possibly more open community,
the economic characteristics of the community and of the host country at the time
of the immigrant’s arrival and whether the skills that the immigrant possesses or lacks
are valued in the host community at the time of the immigrant’s arrival. Biculturalism
can vary from a model that involves synthesizing the elements of both cultures to
Acculturation, Development, and Adaptation
the point at which the separation of the elements of each culture sometimes becomes
indistinct, to a model of blended biculturalism, in which the immigrant keeps the
cultural values, practices, and identifications of the heritage culture separate from
the new influences. Schwartz and colleagues63 propose that in future studies, to accurately understand and measure acculturation, 6 processes need to be taken into
account: (1) the practices, (2) values, and (3) cultural identifications of the receiving
culture; and the (1) practices, (2) values, and (3) cultural identifications of the heritage
culture.
SUMMARY AND RECOMMENDATIONS
The process of immigration and acculturation often leads to a fluidity of household
compositions that may generate distancing and conflicts among the different family
members and result in adverse mental health outcomes. Clinicians treating immigrant
children, adolescents, and their families must be prepared to understand divergent,
and often well-hidden, world views, as well as difficulties with acculturation that
may cause intrafamilial conflicts and that interfere with the completion of the child’s
developmental process. Most important is to keep in mind that the children of today’s
immigrants are a generation oriented not to their parents’ immigrant pasts, but to their
own American futures.
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DEVELOPMENTAL REVIEW, 17, 78–100 (1997)
ARTICLE NO. DR960422
Language, Culture, and Moral Development:
A Vygotskian Perspective
Mark B. Tappan
Education and Human Development, Colby College
This article outlines a sociocultural perspective on the study of moral development. Grounded in Vygotsky’s exploration of the developmental relationship between speech and thinking, it highlights the semiotic mediation of moral functioning via inner speech as inner moral dialogue, the social origins of moral
functioning, and…
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