Multiculturalism as Adolescents’ First Preference for Acculturation in Relation to Moroccan Classmates After the Financial Crisis: A New Communicative Context

Following Berry’s (2005) acculturation model, this study examined the acculturation profiles of host population secondary education students toward their Moroccan immigrant peers after the financial crisis in Spain, by means of the newly-developed National Adolescents’ Acculturation Preferences scale. In addition, the contributions to participants’ acculturation profiles of a set of psychological, psychosocial, and school adaptation variables were examined, producing a multidimensional model of acculturation preferences in an educational context. The goal was to establish the main axes along which intercultural relationships and communication can be enhanced. This quantitative and ex post facto study recruited a convenience sample of 207 secondary education students drawn from the native population. Participants were recruited from multicultural high schools in southern Spain; the sample consisted of 109 girls and 98 boys, with an average age of 14 years. The results showed that the scale possessed satisfactory psychometric properties. Confirmatory factor analysis confirmed the presence of the two factors proposed in Berry’s model of acculturation, contact participation (loading on 7 items) and cultural maintenance (6 items), which explained a total of 53.3% of the overall variance. The internal consistency of each of these subscales, as measured by Cronbach’s alpha, was .86 and .83, respectively. Overall, the acculturation profiles attributed to host population students in southern Spain indicated a preference for multiculturalism over exclusion, segregation, or melting pot strategies. These results differ in part from those of previous research undertaken before the economic crisis, when a melting pot strategy represented the second most frequent preference profile among the native population. Notably, interethnic in-group bias, self-esteem, sympathy toward different ethnic and national groups, and school violence were significantly associated with variation in the acculturation profiles of native-born students. The findings suggest a need to contextualize research on and the assessment of acculturation profiles, and the results also have implications for the management of host population students in a multicultural educational context.

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