The relationship between cognitive achievement and the perceived cultural-distance and acculturative orientations of immigrant adolescents.
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1
Emirates College for Advanced Education, United Arab Emirates
Migration of peoples across the globe for the purpose of resettlement has been a constant throughout human history and has occurred for a multitude of reasons. Nevertheless, regardless of causes, the consequent interaction between the immigrants and their host community invariably gives rise to comparisons, both direct and indirect, between the culture of their new host environment and their original heritage culture. In turn, the ensuing subjective evaluations of similarities and differences between the heritage and host cultures can influence the nature and outcome of future interactions undertaken by the immigrants within their new host environment and the subsequent level of stress they may experience in their daily lives.
Inclusion of immigrant and culture related data from the fifth cycle of the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), enabled examination of associations between the perceived cultural-distance of first- and second-generation immigrant adolescents towards the host culture, and their cognitive achievement. Additionally, the data also enabled investigation of relationships between cognitive achievement and the reported use of heritage and host culture-oriented acculturation strategies by first- and second-generation immigrant adolescents.
Hierarchical regression analyses, after accounting for student demographic characteristics, revealed that first-generation immigrant adolescents’ perceived cultural-distance was significantly negatively associated with their cognitive achievement on the PISA reading and mathematics assessments. Furthermore, analysis revealed a positive relationship between host culture-oriented strategies and first-generation immigrant adolescents’ cognitive achievement on the PISA reading, mathematics and science assessments, and also second-generation immigrant adolescents’ performance on reading assessment. Moreover, both first- and second- generation immigrant adolescents’ heritage culture-oriented strategies were significantly negatively linked to performance on the PISA reading, mathematics, and science assessments.
Keywords:
cultural-distance,
Cognitive achievement,
Acculturation orientations,
academic performance,
first- and second-generation immigrant adolescents
Conference:
3rd International Conference on Educational Neuroscience, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, 11 Mar - 12 Mar, 2018.
Presentation Type:
Poster Presentation
Topic:
Educational Neuroscience
Citation:
Melkonian
M,
Areepattamannil
S,
Menano
L and
Fidalgo
P
(2018). The relationship between cognitive achievement and the perceived cultural-distance and acculturative orientations of immigrant adolescents..
Conference Abstract:
3rd International Conference on Educational Neuroscience.
doi: 10.3389/conf.fnhum.2018.225.00030
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Received:
11 Feb 2018;
Published Online:
14 Dec 2018.
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Correspondence:
Dr. Michael Melkonian, Emirates College for Advanced Education, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, mmelkonian@ecae.ac.ae