About this Research Topic

Background

Acculturation refers to the process of change that occurs when people of different cultural backgrounds are in enduring contact. For the individual, this process can manifest itself in a stronger or weaker orientation towards both cultures. Berry’s (1997) conceptualization of four patterns of acculturation orientation is well-established in the field of cross-cultural psychology and beyond.

Decades of acculturation research in psychology have led to an extensive body of literature on acculturation and its outcomes in terms of psychological and sociocultural adaptation. For children and youth research has especially shown relationships of acculturation and different educational outcomes.

Acculturation research has also brought forward a variety of methodological approaches for the empirical investigation of acculturation: qualitative and quantitative approaches, cross-sectional vs. longitudinal measurements, systematic reviews, or meta-analytic approaches. In addition, a multitude of measures and analytical methods increases the various approaches to capturing the acculturation construct.

This Research Topic aims to provide new insights into the major challenges of the field and methodological issues in acculturation research in educational settings.

Several recent publications have identified challenges that should be addressed by future research. A key challenge we would like to highlight is the measurement and operationalization of acculturation. One goal is to feature research that focuses on the expansion the two-dimensional model of acculturation to multiple cultures, religiosity and polyculturality in the context of globalization, and accounting for the context and domain specificity of acculturation as well as the fit of acculturation orientations to the (school) context . Another aspect that has been neglected so far is also how majority-group members relate to immigrant and minority group cultures (Kunst, Lefringhausen, Sam, Sam, Berry, & Dovidio, 2021). Furthermore, we would like to compile research that considers children's and adolescents' age-specific changing conceptualization of culture, culturally specific perspectives on the interplay of cultures, multilevel approaches, and the inclusion of multiple sources of information. Moreover, due to globalization the exposure of individuals “to remote cultures in which they have never lived” can lead to remote acculturation. Another important goal is to address the "causality crisis in acculturation" with longitudinal studies and sophisticated statistical methods such as latent class growth analysis.

We invite contributions from researchers conducting acculturation research in the field of education. Studies are sought to draw on a range of designs, instruments, and analytical approaches. These will include new models of acculturation, innovative measurement tools, and diverse evaluation methods including mixed methods approaches, literature reviews, and meta-analyses. We invite authors to contribute different article types like Original Research, Systematic Review, Methods, Review, Perspective and Conceptual Analysis.

Possible areas of focus include:
- Age-dependent development of acculturation of children and youth
- Stability and changeability of acculturation orientations
- Context- and domain-specific acculturation processes in the educational context
- Acculturation orientations and expectations of the majority-group and the school as institution
- Acculturation in multicultural and globalized contexts
- Remote acculturation

Keywords: Acculturation, school context, education, measurement, methods

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.

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