Magn Nyang

Acculturation of Ethiopian and Somali Immigrant Adolescents: Acculturation Orientation of Immigrant Youths in the United States Magn Nyang

Cultural adjustment is a particular challenge to immigrant youths, who are trying to learn and achieve a new language while simultaneously dealing with developmental issues such as forming a sense of ethnic identity, assimilating to a new culture,relating to peers,and learning new role relations (Lynch, 1992). Because adolescence is a critical period of development, examining the acculturation orientation and adjustment process of adolescents is especially relevant (Yeh et al., 2003). This quantitative and a cross-sectional survey study examined the acculturation orientation of Ethiopian and Somali immigrant youths living in the Twin Cities metropolitan area of Minnesota. A volunteer sample of 60 Ethiopian and 60 Somali immigrant adolescents between the ages of 10 and 18 years old participated. The Acculturation, Habits, and Interests Multicultural Scale for Adolescents (AHIMSA; Unger et al.; 2002) was administered to these adolescents to determine four subscale scores: assimilation, integration, separated, and marginalized. A chi-square test was used to analyze subscale scores with identified variables to determine outcomes for four hypotheses. Two of the four hypotheses were rejected.