Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-lj6df Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-10T13:53:44.319Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Acculturation through the lens of language: Syrian refugees in Canada and Germany

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 October 2020

Katrin Lindner ,
Kathleen Hipfner-Boucher Open the ORCID record for Kathleen Hipfner-Boucher [Opens in a new window] ,
Anna Yamashita ,
Claudia Maria Riehl ,
Mohcine Ait Ramdan  and
Xi Chen
Katrin Lindner
Affiliation:
Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München
Kathleen Hipfner-Boucher*
Affiliation:
University of Toronto
Anna Yamashita
Affiliation:
University of Toronto
Claudia Maria Riehl
Affiliation:
Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München
Mohcine Ait Ramdan
Affiliation:
Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München
Xi Chen
Affiliation:
University of Toronto
*
*Corresponding author. E-mail: khibou59@gmail.com
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The objective of our study was to investigate the acculturation experiences of Syrian refugee families in two contexts (Toronto, Canada, and Munich, Germany) 2 years postresettlement. Specifically, using qualitative methodologies, we examined acculturation orientation through the lens of parent and child minority and majority language use and preferences within multiple contexts. The interview data related to parent and child minority and majority language practices in Canada suggested an integration orientation. Those of families living in Germany were less indicative of a clear orientation; contextual factors restricted parents’ participation in the majority culture, while the youngest of their children tended toward assimilation. Our study revealed similarities and differences in the acculturation experiences of Syrian refugees in Canada and Germany and unveiled specific factors that influenced acculturation orientation in each country.

Keywords

acculturationlanguage preferencelanguage userefugees
Type
Original Article
Information
Applied Psycholinguistics , Volume 41 , Special Issue 6: The Language, Literacy and Social Integration of Refugee Children and Youth , November 2020 , pp. 1351 - 1374
Check for updates
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Abdelhadi, M. (2017). The role of education in the maintenance of Arabic language among the Arabic-speaking community in the regional city of Toowoomba, Australia. Fourth Asia Pacific Conference on Advanced Research (pp. 52–62). Melbourne, March, 2017.Google Scholar
Acton, W. R., & Walker de Felix, J. (1986). Acculturation and mind. In Valdes, J. M. (Ed.), Culture bound: Bridging the cultural gap in language teaching (pp. 20–32). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Ait Ramdan, M. (2019). Herkunftssprachen und DAZ: Arabisch. In Fäcke, Ch. & Meißner, F.-J. (Eds.), Handbuch der Mehrsprachigkeits- und Mehrkulturalitätsdidaktik. Tübingen: Narr.Google Scholar
Albarazi, Z. (2013). The stateless Syrians: Report of the Middle East and North Africa Nationality and Statelessness Research Project. Statelessness Programme, Tilburg University, The Netherlands. Available at https://www.refworld.org/pdfid/52a983124.pdfGoogle Scholar
Antonini, R. (2010). The study of child language brokering: Past, current and emerging research. Medi Azioni, 10. Available at http://mediazioni.sitlec.unibo.itGoogle Scholar
Arends-Tóth, J., & van de Vijver, F. J. R. (2006). Assessment of psychological acculturation. In Sam, D. L. & Berry, J. W. (Eds.), Cambridge handbook of acculturation psychology (pp. 142–162). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Behrens, H. (2009). Usage-based and emergentist approaches to language acquisition. Linguistics, 47, 383–411. doi: 10.1515/LING.2009.014CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Berry, J. (1997). Immigration, acculturation, and adaptation. Applied Psychology: An International Review, 46, 5–68.Google Scholar
Berry, J. (2001). A psychology of immigration. Journal of Social Issues, 57, 615–631.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Berry, J. (2005). Acculturation: Living successfully in two cultures. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 29, 697–712.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Berry, J. (2006). Contexts of acculturation. In Sam, D. L. & Berry, J. W. (Eds.), The Cambridge handbook of acculturation psychology (pp. 27–42). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Birman, D. (2006). Acculturation gap and family adjustment: Findings with Soviet Jewish refugees in the United States and implications for measurement. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 37, 568–589. doi: 10.1177/0022022106290479CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Birman, D., & Trickett, E. J. (2001). Cultural transitions in first-generation immigrants acculturation of soviet Jewish refugee adolescents and parents. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 32, 456–477.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Braun, V., & Clarke, V. (2006). Using thematic analysis in psychology. Qualitative Research in Psychology, 3, 77–101.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Buki, L. P., Ma, T. C., Strom, R. D., & Strom, S. K. (2003). Chinese immigrant mothers of adolescents: Self-perceptions of acculturation effects on parenting. Cultural Diversity & Ethnic Minority Psychology, 9, 127–140.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bundesamt für Migration und Flüchtlinge. (2016). Aktuelle Zahlen zu Asyl. Tabellen, Diagramme. Erläuterungen. Retrieved from www.bamf.de.Google Scholar
Bundesamt für Migration und Flüchtlinge. (2019). Aktuelle Zahlen zu Asyl. Tabellen, Diagramme, Erläuterungen. Retrieved from www.bamf.deGoogle Scholar
Citizenship and Immigration Canada. (2010). Evaluation of the Language Instruction for Newcomers to Canada (LINC) Program. Retrieved from https://www.canada.ca/content/dam/ircc/migration/ircc/english/resources/evaluation/linc/2010/linc-eval.pdfGoogle Scholar
Colic-Peisker, V., & Walker, I. (2003). Human capital, acculturation ands social identity: Bosnian refugees in Australia. Journal of Community & Applied Social Psychology, 13, 337–360. doi: 10.1002/casp.743CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Costigan, C., & Dokis, D. (2006). Relations between parent-child acculturation differences and adjustment within immigrant Chinese families. Child Development, 77, 1252–1267.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Creswell, J., & Guetterman, T. (2019). Educational research: Planning, conducting, and evaluating quantitative and qualitative research. New York: Pearson.Google Scholar
Cummins, J. (2008). BICS and CALP: Empirical and theoretical status of the distinction. In Street, B. & Hornberger, N. (Eds.), Encyclopedia of language and education: Vol 2. Literacy (2nd ed., pp. 71–83). New York: Springer Science + Business Media LLC.Google Scholar
Dow, H. (2011). The acculturation processes: The strategies and factors affecting the degree of acculturation. Home Health Care Mangement & Practice, 23, 221–227. doi: 10.1177/1084822310390877CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dow, H. D., & Woolley, S. R. (2011). Mental health perceptions and coping strategies of Albanian immigrants and their families. Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, 37, 95–108. doi: 10.1111/j.1752-0606.2010.00199.xCrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Drwish, S. M. (2017). The Kurdish school curriculum in Syria: A step towards self-rule? Atlantic Council. Retrieved from https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/syriasource/the-kurdish-school-curriculum-in-syria-a-step-towards-self-rule/Google Scholar
Ellis, N. C. (2006). Language acquisition as rational contingency learning. Applied Linguistics, 27, 1–24. doi: 10.1093/applin/ami038CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fylan, F. (2005). Semi-structured interviewing. In Miles, J. & Gilbert, P. (Eds.), A handbook of research methods for clinical and health psychology (pp. 65–78). New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Gibson, M. A. (2001). Immigrant adaptation and patterns of acculturation. Human Development, 44, 19–23. doi: 10.1159/000057037CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gogonas, N. (2011). Religion as a core value in language maintenance: Arabic speakers in Greece. International Migration. Advance online publication. doi: 10.1111/j.1468-2435.2010.00661.xGoogle Scholar
Gomaa, Y. (2011). Language maintenance and transmission: The case of Egyptian Arabic in Durham, UK. International Journal of English Linguistics, 1, 46–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grote, J., Bitterwolf, M., & Baraulina, T. (2016). Resettlement und humanitäre Aufnahmeprogramme in Deutschland. Fokusstudie der deutschen nationalen Kontaktstelle für das Europäische Migrationsnetzwerk (EMN). Working Paper 68. Nürnberg, Bundesamt für Flüchtlinge.Google Scholar
Haase, A., Rohmann, A., & Hallman, K. (2019). An ecological approach to psychological adjustment: A field survey among refugees in Germany. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 68, 44–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hammer, K. (2017). They speak what language to whom?! Acculturation and language use for communicative domains in bilinguals. Language & Communication, 56, 42–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Immigration, Refugee, and Citizenship Canada. (2018). Syrian Refugees—Monthly IRCC Updates—Open Government Portal. Retrieved from https://open.canada.ca/data/dataset/01c85d28-2a81-4295-9c06-4af792a7c209Google Scholar
Jia, F., Gottardo, A., Koh, P.W., Chen, X., & Pasquarella, A. (2014). The role of acculturation in reading a second language: Its relation to English literacy skills in immigrant Chinese adolescents. Reading Research Quarterly, 49, 251–261.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jones, C., & Trickett, E. (2005). Immigrant adolescents behaving as culture brokers: A study of families from the former Soviet Union. Journal of Social Psychology, 145, 405–427.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kang, S.-M. (2006). Measurement of acculturation, scale, formats, and language competence: Their implications for adjustment. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 37, 669–693.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Massumi, M., von Dewitz, N., Grießbach, J., Terhart, H., Wagner, K., Hippmann, K., & Altinay, L. (2015). Neu zugewanderte Kinder und Jugendliche im deutschen Schulsystem. Bestandsaufnahme und Empfehlungen. Köln: Mercator-Institut für Sprachförderung und Deutsch als Zweitsprache. Zentrum für LehrerInnenbildung der Universität zu Köln. Retrieved August 19, 2018, from https://www.mercator-institut-sprachfoerderung.de/fileadmin/Redaktion/PDF/Publikationen/MI_ZfL_Studie_Zugewanderte_im_deutschen_Schulsystem_final_screen.pdfGoogle Scholar
Oppedal, B. (2006). Development and acculturation. In Sam, D. L. & Berry, J. W. (Eds.), Cambridge handbook of acculturation psychology (pp. 97–112). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Paradis, J. (2011). Individual differences in child English second language acquisition: Comparing child-internal and child-external factors. Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism, 1, 213–237.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Paradis, J., Rusk, B., Sorenson Duncan, T., Govindarajan, K. (2017). Children’s second language acquisition of English complex syntax: The role of age, input, and cognitive factors. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 37, 148–167. doi: 10.1017/S0267190517000022CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Park, S., & Sarkar, S. (2007). Parents’ attitudes toward heritage language maintenance for their children and their efforts to help their children maintain the heritage language: A case study of Korean-Canadian immigrants. Language, Culture and Curriculum, 20, 223–235. doi: 10.2167/lcc337.0CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Phinney, J. S. (2003). Ethnic identity and acculturation. In Chun, K. M., Organista, P. B., & Marin, G. (Eds.), Acculturation: Advances in theory, measurement, and applied research (pp. 63–81). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Phinney, J. S., Ong, A., & Madden, T. (2000). Cultural values and intergenerational value discrepancies in immigrant and non-immigrant families. Child Development, 71, 528–539.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Phinney, J. S, Romero, I., Nava, M., & Huang, D. (2001). The role of language, parents, and peers in ethnic identity among adolescents in immigrant families. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 30, 135–153.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Portes, A., & Rumbaut, R. G. (2001). The forging of a new America: Lessons for theory and policy. In Rumbaut, R. G. & Portes, A. (Eds.), Ethnicities: Children of immigrants in America. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Rudmin, F. W. (2003). Critical history of the acculturation psychology of assimilation, separation, integration, and marginalization. Review of General Psychology, 7, 3–37. doi: 10.1037/1089-2680.7.3.250CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Salant, T., & Lauderdale, D. S. (2003). Measuring a culture: A critical review of acculturation and health in Asian immigrant populations. Social Science and Medicine, 20, 71–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sam, D. L. (2006). Acculturation: Conceptual background and core components. In Sam, D. L. & Berry, J. W. (Eds.), Cambridge handbook of acculturation psychology (pp. 11–26). Cambridge: University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sheikh, M. & Anderson, J. R. (2018). Acculturation patterns and education of refugees and asylum seekers: A systematic literature reviews. Learning and Individual Differences, 67, 22–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shen, J. & Dennis, J. (2019). The family context of language brokering among Latino/a young adults. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 36, 131–152. doi: 10.1177/0265407517721379CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Silove, D., Steel, Z., & Waters, C. (2000). Policies of deterrence and mental health of asylum seekers. Journal of American Medical Association, 284, 604–611.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Statistics Canada. (2019). Results from the 2016 Census: Syrian refugees who resettled in Canada in 2015 and 2016. Insights on Canadian Society. Retrieved from: https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/75-006-x/2019001/article/00001-eng.htmGoogle Scholar
Telzer, E. (2010). Expanding the acculturation gap-distress model: An integrative review of research. Human Development, 53, 313–340. doi: 10.1159/000322476CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Toronto District School Board. (2014). English as a second language/English literacy development. Retrieved from http://www.tdsb.on.ca/High-School/Your-School- Day/English-as-a-Second-LanguageGoogle Scholar
Tsai, J. L., Ying, Y.-W., & Lee, P. A. (2000). The meaning of “being Chinese” and “being American”: Variation among Chinese American young adults. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 31, 302–332.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tseng, V., & Fuligni, A. J. (2000). Parent-adolescent language use and relationships among immigrant families with East Asian, Filipino, and Latin American backgrounds. Journal of Marriage and Family, 62, 465–476. doi: 10.1111/j.1741-3737.2000.00465.xCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Turjoman, M. (2013). The Arabic language and the role of mothers in maintaining it among Arab family immigrants in Chicago. International Journal of Arts and Sciences, 6, 659–667.Google Scholar
Turjoman, M. (2017). Language maintenance and core values among second generation Arabs in the USA. International Journal of Applied Linguistics and English Literature, 6, 94–100.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Unger, J., Ritt-Olson, A., Wagner, K., Soto, D., & Baezconde-Garbanati, L. (2007). A comparison of acculturation measures among Hispanic/Latino adolescents. Journal of Youth Adolescence, 36, 555–565.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
United Nations High Comissioner for Refugees. (2002). Protecting refugees: Questions and answers. Retrieved from: https://www.unhcr.org/publications/brochures/3b779dfe2/protecting-refugees-questions-answers.htmlGoogle Scholar
van Oudenhoven, J. P. (2006). Immigrants. In Sam, D. L. & Berry, J. W. (Eds.), Cambridge handbook of acculturation psychology (pp. 163–197). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ward, C., Fox, S., Wilson, J., Stuart, J. & Kus, L. (2010). Contextual influences on acculturation processes: The roles of family, community and society. Psychological Studies, 55, 26–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Whitlock, J. (2007). The role of adults, public space, and power in adolescent community connectedness. Journal of Community Psychology, 35, 499–518.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yagmur, K., & van de Vijver, F. (2012). Acculturation and language orientations of Turkish immigrants in Australia, France, Germany, and the Netherlands. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 43, 1110–1130.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ying, Y., & Han, M. (2008). Parental acculturation, parental involvement, intergenerational relationship and adolescent outcomes in immigrant Filipino American families. Journal of Immigrant & Refugee Studies, 6, 112–131. doi: 10.1080/15362940802119351CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zane, Z., & Mak, W. (2003). Major approaches to the measurement of acculturation among ethnic minority populations: A content analysis and an alternative empirical strategy. In Chun, K. M., Organista, P. B., & Marin, G. (Eds.), Acculturation: Advances in theory, measurement, and applied research (pp. 39–60). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.CrossRefGoogle Scholar