Language, ethnic identity, and the adaptation of Turkish immigrant youth in the Netherlands and Sweden
Introduction
In this paper we explore the possible impact of immigrant policies, more particularly language policies on the adaptation of second generation Turkish youth in Sweden and the Netherlands. We do so from the perspective of immigrants’ and society's acculturation strategies or attitudes. Sweden and the Netherlands support multiculturalism and integration, but belong to a middle group when it comes to the extent of immigration. Both countries are characterized by Waldrauch and Hofinger (1997) as belonging to the most welcoming to immigrants. They are characterized by high rates of naturalization and immigrants can participate in local elections before acquiring citizenship (cf. Pettigrew, 1998). These commonalities between the two countries are combined, however, with important differences with regard to immigrant language policies and practices. In Sweden, broad attention for the immigrants’ cultural background, including their ethnic language, was traditionally accompanied by intensive efforts to facilitate the acquisition of the Swedish language, whereas in the Netherlands for many decades language and culture maintenance were stimulated assuming that immigrants and their offspring would soon return to their countries of origin. This focus on culture and language maintenance was not accompanied by systematic efforts to stimulate the acquisition of Dutch language proficiency and to facilitate or force interactions between cultures and their representatives. Since the 1990s Turkish immigrants in the Netherlands have been experiencing a rather sudden push or a moral pressure to commit themselves and to take responsibility for improving their Dutch language proficiency. We will come back to these differences later.
Berry (1997), Berry (1990) introduced a two-dimensional model of acculturation recognizing that the two dominant aspects of acculturation, namely, preservation of one's heritage culture and adaptation to the host society, are conceptually distinct and can vary independently (Liebkind, 2001). On the basis of this distinction, Berry suggested the following two questions as a means of identifying strategies used by immigrants in dealing with acculturation: Is it considered to be of value to maintain one's cultural heritage? Is it considered to be of value to develop relationships with the larger society? Four acculturation strategies -integration, assimilation, separation, and marginalization—can be derived from yes or no answers to these two questions. Integration is defined by positive answers to both questions, and marginalization by negative answers to both. A positive response to the first and negative to the second defines separation, and the reverse defines assimilation. The model highlights the fact that acculturation proceeds in diverse ways, and that it is not necessary for immigrants to give up their culture of origin in order to adapt to the new society. A variety of international researchers showed or argued that integration is the most adaptive mode of acculturation and the most conducive to the immigrants’ well being, while marginalization is the worst (Berry, 1997; Howard, 1998; LaFromboise, Coleman, & Gerton, 1993).
However, there are also empirical studies and theoretical analyses that suggest that context matters in terms of what the most adaptive acculturation strategy is (cf. Birman, Trickett, & Vinokurov, 2002; Mollenkopf, 2000; Phinney, Liebkind, Horenczyk, & Vedder, 2001). Within and between ethnic groups in a society the notion of what the preferred acculturation strategy is and what is the criterion for positive adaptation may vary. In public debates or other social interactions this may result in collisions and push-and-pull forces towards a particular acculturation strategy. A choice for a particular acculturation strategy may be more or less contextually forced or adaptive from the perspective of one of the groups involved, but may not lead to the best possible adaptation in as far as that means that all individuals and groups involved maximally prosper and feel well. Van Oudenhoven, Prins, and Buunk (1998) suggested that representatives of the Dutch majority prefer immigrants to adopt assimilation or integration as their acculturation strategy, while they assume that most immigrants prefer a separation strategy. It seems likely that indications that immigrants want to maintain their links with their culture and language are interpreted as a deviation from the desired situation. Public opinion in the Netherlands is tending towards growing impatience with immigrants and the progress of their adaptation to Dutch society (cf. Arends-Tóth, 2003). This is accompanied by an explicit expression of fear by members of parliament and other politicians who are afraid of a lack of control in respect of the growing influence of Islamic educational, political, and religious practices and a growing Islamic population (by now 5% of the population).
Recently policymakers and educators, however, have been stressing that immigrants in the Netherlands should learn Dutch and even act Dutch, even if this is at the expense of a loss of contact with their cultural heritage (Crul, 2000; Driessen & Withagen, 1999). Nevertheless in the Dutch political and educational debate about immigrants’ acculturation integration is generally mentioned as the preferred attitude or strategy (Deurloo & Musterd, 2001; Mahnig & Wimmer, 2000). The interactions between the groups, mutual perceptions, and actual possibilities for social participation, however, may lead to group and context-bound qualifications of the concept of integration, in which the majority group stresses the need for assimilation and the ethnic groups the need for cultural and linguistic maintenance or separation, at least in what they consider to be private domains of life (Arends-Tóth & Van de Vijver, 2003). Whereas all these groups continue to talk in terms of integration, it actually would be more accurate to speak in terms assimilation and separation. This context dependency of the acculturation strategy and the linked notion of what is the most adaptive strategy is explored in this study by comparing samples of Turkish second generation adolescents living in Sweden and the Netherlands.
This paper focuses on language proficiency and on ethnic identity as elements of acculturation. It explores the relationships between immigrant adolescents’ first and second language proficiency, their ethnic identity, and their psychological and sociocultural adaptation.
As for ethnic identity, we will focus on what is called by Phinney (1992) the group membership component. Phinney's notion of this component is based on social identity theory (Tajfel & Turner, 1986). Social identity refers to a person's sense of belonging to a group and the attitudes and emotions that accompany this sense of belonging. This sense of belonging is basic to feelings of security and competence, but in many situations it will also be indicative of the availability of social, material or emotional support in processes of psychological and sociocultural adaptation. Both the feelings of security and competence and the availability of support are conducive to a healthy psychological adaptation (Liebkind, 1996).
Psychological adaptation refers to feelings of well-being or satisfaction, whereas sociocultural adaptation refers to the ability to “fit in” or adjust to new social settings. Psychological adaptation is primarily based on affective responses, whereas sociocultural adaptation is based on behaviors and the effectiveness of interactions in a new cultural milieu, and the skills that facilitate these interactions (Ward, 2001).
We explored the aforementioned relationships using three models. The first model is the ethnic identity model (Alkan, 1998). This model assumes that immigrant youth is growing up between cultures, which leads to identity confusion and adaptation problems if the children experience a lack of appreciation for the skills, knowledge and feelings that are typical of their cultural background. The model proposes that a strong ethnic identity is important for immigrants’ healthy integration and well-being in the new society.
The model, albeit not necessarily under this name, has had a clear impact on the school curriculum for ethno-cultural minority students in countries like the Netherlands and Sweden (Alkan, 1998; Viberg, 1994). Lessons in students’ first language and lessons on students’ cultural heritage are seen as important for preventing or overcoming the problems. Such lessons are deemed to allow immigrant youth to experience appreciation for their parents’ language and culture. The assumptions are that language maintenance and a good knowledge of one's own culture should contribute to adolescents’ ethnic identity, and a strong ethnic identity should function as a support for a healthy psychological adaptation. A similar model seems influential in the US, although here scholars like Glenn and De Jong (1996) and Ogbu (1992) suggested that the preventive part more frequently entails ethnic studies than heritage language programs.
Some studies confirmed the expectation that a strong ethnic identity is related to a positive adaptation of minority youth (Liebkind, 1996; Phinney, Cantu, & Kurtz, 1997; Virta & Westin, 1999; Virta, Sam, & Westin, 2004). However, this relationship may vary across individuals, groups, and the aspects of adaptation under consideration. For instance, several studies show that school success, an element of sociocultural adaptation, is related to the maintenance of strong ethnic identities (cf. Olneck, 1994). Others found no relationship (Rotheram-Borus, 1990), or a positive relationship with national identity (Nguyen, Messe, & Stollak, 1999).
In the ethnic identity model the ethnic language is seen as a symbol of tradition, heritage and ethnicity (cf. Fishman (1989), Fishman (1996)). This function of language is especially important in relation to ethnic identity, since it refers to a criterion for distinguishing between in-group and out-group. It refers to the significance that language has for bonding between the person and a cultural group, a process of bonding which may surpass the person's generation. When a language is given high significance in this respect it is likely to be a defining part of a person's or a group's ethnic identity. In the ethnic identity model ethnic language proficiency is deemed to have an indirect effect on adolescents’ learning and development.
Language proficiency in either the first or second language also may have a direct impact on adolescents’ learning and development in that it is an instrument for the transmission of information and for regulating cognitive processes (cf. Baker, 2001). When focusing on this direct relationship between language proficiency and adolescents’ learning and development we are dealing with the communicative function of language. The relationship between this communicative function of language and adaptation is not necessarily mediated by ethnic identity. Models 2 and 3 focus on this communicative function.
In the Netherlands, there is a shortage of research analyzing the value of the ethnic identity model. In Sweden, two studies have demonstrated a relationship between a strong ethnic identity and a good psychological well-being (Sam & Virta, 2003; Virta & Westin, 1999; Virta et al., 2004) At present this model is under attack by politicians and professional educators. In the Netherlands growing support is given to the notion that immigrant youth's proficiency in the majority language (L2) is a better predictor of academic performance and social participation than either proficiency in their first language (L1) or measures of ethnic identity. This notion seems to have a more solid basis in research (cf. Driessen, 2000). We refer to this model as the language assimilation model. With respect to the Netherlands, Tesser (Tesser & Iedema, 2001) suggested that the growing support for this model is also due to recent changes in school curricula. These changes aim at stimulating students’ self-regulated learning with an increased attention for cooperation, discussions, verbalizing problem solving strategies and writing assignments; in short, a good command of the Dutch language. This development has made it relatively more difficult for immigrant students to do well in schools.
This model plays a less important role in the Swedish discourse on immigrant acculturation.
The third model to be tested in this study is the language integration model. It is inspired by research on bilingualism showing that children who acquired high levels of proficiency in more than one language developed extra cognitive resources as compared to children who grew up with one language (for an overview of research, see Baker, 2001). In line with this notion we would expect that immigrant adolescents who are proficient in both their ethnic and the majority language have higher scores for psychological and sociocultural adaptation than adolescents who are less balanced in their bilingualism or who lack proficiency in either language. Inspired by and in analogy to Berry's two-dimensional model of acculturation, ethnic language proficiency and majority language proficiency can be seen as two dimensions or aspects of immigrant adolescents socialization that may vary independently. Each may or may not contribute to the socialization outcome, and together they may reinforce or weaken each other. Based on adolescents’ scores for ethnic and majority language proficiency we may distinguish four types of bilingualism: marginalization (weak proficiency in either language), assimilation (weak proficiency in ethnic language, strong proficiency in Dutch) separation (strong in ethnic language and weak in Dutch language) and integration (strong in both languages). We expect that integration corresponds to higher levels of adaptation and marginalization to lower levels.
In our exploration of the value of the three models we followed a comparative approach, because we assumed that support for a particular model might be country specific. We assumed that the countries’ immigrant policy, more particularly the language policy component is an influential factor in this respect.
During the past decades Sweden has gained worldwide renown for its immigrant and refugee policy, the main characteristics of which have been egalitarianism and generosity. Refugees received education, employment and housing, as well as health insurance, subsidized health care and, when appropriate, unemployment insurance and pension provisions. In Sweden the policy of integration of immigrants is summarized in three concepts: equality, freedom of choice, and partnership. Equality is about the availability of the social welfare system to all permanent residents of Sweden, irrespective of citizenship. Freedom of choice is about abandoning assimilation and accepting cultural diversity. Mother tongue instruction in schools and nursery schools is an important instrument. The third concept is less clear and is interpreted as the application of the other two to political life, or as a need for reciprocity: Sweden gives its best and the immigrants should give their best and work towards common objectives, for instance learn Swedish as soon as possible.
Since 1977 all youth up to the age of 16, who came from homes in which a language other than Swedish was spoken, could receive instruction in their own language aimed at stimulating active bilingualism (Viberg, 1994). In addition, immigrant students with learning problems could receive support lessons in their home language provided that a home language teacher was available. Cabau Lampa (1999) suggested that the attention for students’ home language was inspired by the notion that Swedish schools cater for the interests and needs of all children irrespective of gender, ethnic and cultural background, the purpose of which is to support their participation and integration in society. In schools efforts were made to encourage coherence between people in a culturally diversified society. Since the early 1970s there have been Finnish bilingual classes in the Swedish school, and from the 1990s Sweden already has had schools for one particular language group, viz. the Finns. Since 2000, Finns have been recognized as an official linguistic minority in Sweden, in accordance with the minority and minority language conventions of the European Union. Policymakers are of the opinion that the situation should be avoided that other language groups also would claim their own language schools. Such claims would likely contribute to segregation and undermine the common schools’ mission in terms of community building. Traditionally in Sweden there has been a strong urge from immigrant groups to be supported in their efforts to maintain their own language and culture. In the 1990s the actual support, however, dwindled due to extensive reductions in budget (cf. Eriksson, 1994; The National Agency for Education, 1996). On the other hand since 1994 immigrant youth in secondary schools could choose their first language as a second obligatory modern foreign language in their curriculum. This tradition of language facilitation suggests that the ethnic identity model might play an important explanatory role in immigrant adolescents’ adaptation.
In Sweden the generous attention paid to immigrant students is accompanied by intensive efforts from policymakers and educators to facilitate the acquisition of Swedish by immigrant children and their parents. At the school level the number of hours available for Swedish as a second language lessons is traditionally greater than the number of hours available for home language lessons. The same is true for support lessons in Swedish as compared to support lessons in the students’ home language. Moreover, whereas the availability of home language lessons is defined in terms of a right, the lessons in Swedish are compulsory for those students for whom teachers deem these important. The message is clear: You may maintain your first language, but you have to become proficient in Swedish. The expected outcome fits the integration model.
In short, in the Swedish sample of Turkish immigrant youth we expected to find support for both the ethnic identity model and the integration model.
The Dutch government officially tries to maintain a two-track immigrant policy, aiming at integration into Dutch society as well as the preservation of cultural identity. Two values are guiding this policy: equality of opportunity and equivalence of cultures. The equality of opportunity part of this policy is traditionally being pursued by giving extra funds to schools visited by immigrant children and youth, by securing financial income, either through agreements about minimum salaries or unemployment benefits, guaranteed medical support, financial support for housing, etc. The government currently invests in compulsory introductory courses (Dutch language, orientation on Dutch society and on the labor market) for newcomers and in adult education for the older immigrants. Financing home language lessons for immigrant children and multicultural courses for all students are two means by which cultural equivalence can be ensured. Also financial support to immigrant organizations contributes to this aim, but probably the most typical policy measure concerns the right of parents to establish fully state funded denominational schools, e.g. Muslim or Hindu schools.
As said before, one of the characteristics of the educational immigrant policy in the Netherlands is the availability of home language lessons for immigrant children in primary schools. In the introduction we suggested that this measure was traditionally inspired by assumptions underlying the ethnic identity model, viz. that attention for immigrant students’ first language is needed in order to strengthen the students’ ethnic identity, which is seen as conditional for their well being and adaptation (cf. Lucassen & Köbben, 1992). Hence, we might expect to find support for the ethic identity model in the Dutch sample.
Differences between the Netherlands and Sweden as regards immigrant policies and relevant educational practices are manifold. First, the availability of home language lessons in comparison with the Swedish situation is more restrictive in terms of maximum hours per week and language varieties covered by home language teachers. There is no urge to optimize the attention for students’ home language in schools inspired by the wish to have one common school type for all students that stimulates a sense of community for all. Traditionally the Dutch school system is characterized by a division according to denomination and educational mission. In a sense separation is practiced in the system. Second, although language maintenance has formally been the aim of home language lessons in the Netherlands and Sweden alike, schools, policymakers, and researchers in the Netherlands were actually far more interested in knowing whether or not home language lessons contributed to avoiding or remedying learning problems. Through the years the initial question of whether and how home language lessons can contribute to immigrant students’ school performance in the context of the common core curriculum has gradually changed into the notion that participation in home language classes distracts from the core curriculum and potentially contributes to learning problems; hence a negative attitude. A third difference regards the neglect of the need for additional and special attention for developing Dutch language skills. Originally, language integration was not facilitated. Turks were supposed to return to their country, which explains why the Dutch government supported their wish for culture and language maintenance. Thus, Turkish immigrants tended to be concentrated in neighborhoods close to where they worked and have been encouraged to maintain their own traditional culture, and maintain their Turkish language proficiency and transfer these to their children. Rath (1991) suggested that this explains, at least partly, why the Turks did not or could not follow an integrated acculturation trajectory.
Although, like in Sweden, Turkish children who lacked Dutch language proficiency received support for the acquisition of basic Dutch language skills, a systematic follow up trajectory was not available in primary or secondary schools. It was assumed, instead, that immigrant students survive submersion in a Dutch language context. Apart doubting whether submersion is an appropriate strategy, this assumption of the availability of a Dutch language context is for many immigrant students simply erroneous. To a large extent they grow up with other immigrant contemporaries and adults, who do not provide a rich Dutch language context. In recent years this has led in the Netherlands to a strong push towards language assimilation; a moral pressure on immigrants to commit themselves and to take responsibility for improving their Dutch language proficiency.
In short, in the Dutch sample we expected to find support for the assimilation model and perhaps for the ethnic identity model, but not for the integration model, whereas, as stated earlier, in Sweden we expected to find support for both the ethnic identity model and the integration model.
Section snippets
Method
This study is part of the International Comparative Study of Ethnocultural Youth (ICSEY).1
Results
We first explored our data by calculating scale mean scores and Pearson correlations between scale scores by country (see Table 2).
Mean scores hardly differed between countries. In both countries the adolescents generally evaluated the majority language proficiency as being high. Ethnic identity scores also were generally high. Ethnic language proficiency scores were a little higher in the Netherlands than in Sweden. On the other hand, scores for mastery and life satisfaction were a little
Discussion
In this study we explored the relationship between immigrant adolescents’ ethnic language proficiency, their majority language proficiency, their ethnic identity and their psychological and sociocultural adaptation. More specifically, we tested the validity of three models that are used to explain immigrants’ adaptation processes and outcomes in the new society: the ethnic identity model, the language assimilation model and the language integration model. These models represent acculturation
References (68)
Differentiating among internality, powerful others, and chance
Ethnicity and underachievement in the Netherlands: A curricular analysis
Turkar i Stockholm [Turks in Stockholm]
(1980)The search for school climate: A review of the research
Review of Educational Research
(1982)Psychological acculturation of Turkish migrants in the Netherlands
(2003)- et al.
Multiculturalism and acculturation: Views of Dutch and Turkish-Dutch
European Journal of Social Psychology
(2003) Foundations of bilingual education and bilingualism
(2001)- et al.
Measuring psychiatric disorder among Southeast Asian Refugees
Psychological Medicine
(1986) - et al.
Measurement of antisocial behaviour in early adolescence and adolescence: Psychometric properties and substantive findings
Criminal behaviour and Mental Health
(1999) Immigration, acculturation and adaptation
Applied Psychology: An International Review
(1997)
Psychology of acculturation
Acculturation and adaptation of Soviet Jewish refugee adolescents: Predictors of adjustment across life domains
American Journal of Community Psychology
Decisive factors for language teaching in Sweden
Educational Studies
A new Multidimensional Measure of Children′s Perceptions of control
Child Development
De sleutel tot succes. [The key to success]
Residential profiles of Surinamers and Moroccans in Amsterdam
Urban Studies
The satisfaction with life scale
Journal of Personality Assessment
The limits of educational policy and practice? The case of ethnic minorities in The Netherlands
Comparative Education
Language varieties and educational achievement of indigenous primary school pupils
Language, Culture, and Curriculum
Biculturalism in upper secondary education. A Swedish case study
Language and ethnicity in minority sociolinguistic perspective
What do you lose when you lose your language?
Educating immigrant children: Schools and language minorities in twelve nations
Being Canadian: Citizenship in Canada
Citizenship Studies
Development and validation of a Vietnamese-Language Depression Rating Scale
American Journal of Psychiatry
Multicultural task groups; An account of the low contribution level of minorities
Small Group Research
Rating scales to assess depression in school-aged children
Acta Paedopsychiatry
Psychological impact of biculturalism: Evidence and theory
Psychological Bulletin
Acculturation and stress: Vietnamese refugees in Finland
Journal of Cross Cultural Psychology
Acculturation
Het partiële gelijk. [Partial truth]
Country-specific or convergent? A typology of immigrant policies in Western Europe
International Journal of Migration and Integration
Assimilating immigrants in Amsterdam: A perspective from New York
Netherlands Journal of Social Sciences
Cited by (96)
Acculturation in a postcolonial context: Language, identity, cultural adaptation, and academic achievement of Macao students in Mainland China
2021, International Journal of Intercultural RelationsCitation Excerpt :Regarding national identity, it was found to be indirectly linked to social and academic adaptation via acculturation to Mainland Chinese culture. In acculturation research, national identity is considered a key indicator of immigrant integration (Berry et al., 2006; Vedder & Virta, 2005). In the postcolonial context, Macao students’ national identity is a product of negotiations between themselves in their social and political contexts, both before and during their study in Mainland China (see also Chiu & Hong, 1999; Fu et al., 1999; Hong et al., 2006 for a discussion in the Hong Kong context).
Self-Reported Stressors in Early Adolescence: The Role of Educational Track and Ethnic Background
2024, Journal of Early AdolescenceAn investigation of the language attitudes, identity and power perspectives of isiZulu home-language-speaking students towards isiZulu and other Black South African languages
2024, South African Journal of African LanguagesListener engagement: the missing link in research on accented speech
2023, IRAL - International Review of Applied Linguistics in Language TeachingThe Behavioral and Mental Health Benefits of Speaking the Heritage Language within Immigrant Families: The Moderating Role of Family Relations
2023, Journal of Youth and AdolescenceMigration contexts in shaping community ethnic resources: a Forms of Capital approach on ethnic migrant entrepreneurs in Malaysia
2023, Journal of Enterprising Communities