Acculturation preferences and determinants of second generation Turks and Moroccans in main urban areas of theNetherlands

George Groenewold, Netherlands Interdisciplinary Demographic Institute (NIDI)
Jeroen van Ginneken, Netherlands Interdisciplinary Demographic Institute (NIDI)

Berry's (1997) two-dimensional model of acculturation was applied to data collected in sample surveys in Amsterdam and Rotterdam in 2007. Berry and others advocate that, depending on the life domain, immigrants maintain preferences ranging from a strong desire to preserve own ethnic group culture to a strong desires for adaptation to host culture. Preferences were measured in two life domains, inside and outside the home, and respondents were classified according to index score combinations into groups favouring integration, assimilation, separation or marginalization. Results reveal that about two thirds of second generation (SG) Turks, Moroccans and native Dutch maintain integration preferences. However, almost one third of the SG Turks and one fourth of the SG Moroccans hold separation preferences. This led us to examine to what extent variation in preferences for ethnic group culture inside the home and adaptation to host culture outside the home vary according to selected socio-demographic, psychosocial and contextual factors. Main results are that SG Moroccans more often combine both preservation and adaptation strategies than SG Turks do. Furthermore, although women more often give preference to adaptation outside the home than men, both are equally concerned about preserving ethnic group culture inside the home. Contrary to expectations, better-educated persons give more often preference to preservation of ethnic group culture and less often to adaptation to Dutch culture. The finding that a perceived higher self-efficacy is associated with giving preference to host culture adaptation confirms the expectation that self-confidence and efficacy help bridging cultural barriers. Compared to Amsterdam, second generation respondents in Rotterdam more often maintain adaptation to the host culture preferences and less often preservation of own ethnic group culture preferences, while such persons in neighbourhoods with higher concentrations of own ethnic group members more often have counter-integration preferences such as segregation and marginalization. Profiling of groups using Berry’s model concepts can be useful for integration policy development.