Acculturation orientations of French and North African undergraduates in Paris

The interactive acculturation model (IAM) proposes that acculturation orientations endorsed by host majority and immigrant minority members influence the quality of their intergroup relations. This questionnaire study was conducted with 199 French host majority respondents and 124 North African immigrants who interacted weekly as undergraduates at a large university in a suburb of Paris. Acculturation orientations strongly endorsed by French undergraduates were integrationism and individualism, while segregationism, assimilationism, and exclusionism were weakly endorsed. Acculturation orientations strongly endorsed by North African undergraduates were integrationism, individualism, and separatism, while the least endorsed orientations were assimilationism and marginalization. Confirming basic premises of the IAM model, results showed that French majority and North African undergraduates who endorsed integrationism and individualism were those who perceived the most harmonious relational outcomes with out-group members. French majority undergraduates who endorsed segregationism/exclusionism and North African undergraduates who endorsed separatism were more likely to perceive problematic/conflictual relations with out-group members.