Acculturation Scale for Vietnamese Adolescents - Multicultural Center for Research and Practice - Antioch University New England

Acculturation Scale for Vietnamese Adolescents

Nguyen, H. H., Messé, L. A., & Stollak, G. E. (1999). Toward a more complex understanding of acculturation and adjustment: Cultural involvements and psychosocial functioning in Vietnamese youth. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 30(1), 5-31.

Examined possible links between acculturation and adjustment in 182 Vietnamese youths (10-23 yrs) living in a primarily Anglo American community. The present research employed a complex perspective on both acculturation—cast as separate levels of involvement in the native and host cultures—and adjustment—measured across personal (distress, depression, self-esteem), interpersonal (family relationships), and achievement (GPA) domains. Results indicate that, as expected, involvement in the US culture predicted positive functioning across all three adjustment domains, and involvement in the Vietnamese culture predicted positive family relationships. Contrary to hypotheses, involvement in the Vietnamese culture related negatively to personal adjustment (i.e., distress). Findings are discussed in terms of the apparent complexities of the acculturation-adjustment link, particularly with regard to the utility of viewing acculturation from a two-dimensional framework and the need to consider the type of adjustment examined and the social contexts in which the ethnic groups reside.