Acculturation Attitudes and Social Adjustment in British South Asian Children: A Longitudinal Study

A 1-year longitudinal study with three testing points was conducted with 215 british asian children aged 5 to 11 years to test hypotheses from berry's acculturation framework. using age-appropriate measures of acculturation attitudes and psychosocial outcomes,it was found that (a) children generally favored an integrationist attitude,and this was more pronounced among older (8-10 years) than in younger (5-7 years) children and (b) temporal changes in social self-esteem and peer acceptance were associated with different acculturation attitudes held initially,as shown by latent growth curve analyses. however,a supplementary time-lagged regression analysis revealed that children's earlier integrationist attitudes may be associated with more emotional symptoms (based on teachers' ratings) 6 months later. the implications of these different outcomes of children's acculturation attitudes are discussed. © 2013 by the society for personality and social psychology,inc.