Minority acculturation and peer rejection: Costs of acculturation misfit with peer group norms

How do minority adolescents’ personal acculturation preferences and peer norms of acculturation affect their social inclusion in school? Turkish- and Moroccan-Belgian participants (N=681 in CILS Wave 1) rated their acculturation preferences for heritage culture maintenance, mainstream culture adoption, and their experiences of peer rejection as a key indicator of social exclusion. We aggregated peer acculturation norms of maintenance and adoption within ethnically diverse Belgian classrooms (N=230; 50 schools), distinguishing between co-ethnic (Turkish/Moroccan classmates only) and cross-ethnic norms (adding N=1930 other classmates). Controlling for class composition and individual background, multi-level analysis confirmed that misfit with both co-ethnic and cross-ethnic peer norms of acculturation predicted increased rejection.

Publication year:2016

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IOF-keylabel:yes

BOF-publication weight:1

CSS-citation score:2

Authors from:Higher Education

Accessibility:Open