Young Diaspora Immigrants' Attitude and Behavior Toward the Host Culture: The Role of Cultural Identification

Positive attitudes toward contact with members of the host culture, host-culture language usage, and social relations with natives are frequently used criteria for assessing immigrants' host-culture participation. Precursors of these criteria are, however, rarely studied, especially from a longitudinal perspective. We expected that a strong identification with the host culture or the culture of origin would be associated with higher or lower host-culture participation, respectively, and were able to test these assumptions longitudinally. Study 1 utilized a sample of 376 ethnic German adolescents who had repatriated from Russia to Germany. Over four annual waves, the adolescents reported their identification with being "German" and "Russian," their attitude toward host-culture contact, frequency of host-culture language usage, and the share of natives in their peer network. Growth curve modeling revealed that level and change of identification with being "German" related positively to level and change of host-culture participation, whereas level and change of "Russian" identification related negatively. Study 2 utilized a sample of 549 Russian-Jewish immigrants to Israel, who reported identification at Wave 1 and host-culture participation in three annual assessments. Results basically resembled those of Study 1. Findings from both studies underscore the importance of cultural identification for immigrants' successful acculturation into the host culture. However, results also revealed between-country differences with regard to level of cultural identification and the relation between identification with the host culture and culture of origin.