Whether having immigrated to or born in the United States, Arab American children and adolescents grapple with the degree to which they maintain their heritage culture's traditions and values, and the degree to which they participate in mainstream American traditions (Berry, 1997). As they enter adolescence, Arab American children are not only developing independence, a clearer sense of their personal identity, and closer friendships (Erikson, 1968; Phinney, 1989), but also negotiating multiple cultures and forging identities reflecting their Arab and American culture (Abu-Laban & Abu-Laban, 1999; Phinney, 1989). The goals of this research study were to investigate how acculturation and acculturative stress varied among Arab American adolescents, to determine whether acculturation and acculturative stress predicted psychological adjustment, to report incidence rates of psychological problems in this sample, and to determine whether there were differences between parents and adolescents on acculturation and whether these differences predicted adolescent psychological problems.One hundred thirty-five Arab American adolescents (ages 11 - 21) completed measures of demographic characteristics, acculturation, acculturative stress, religiosity, and social desirability. Parents (n = 76) also completed measures of demographic characteristics and acculturation. Results showed that acculturation varied by age, organizational religiousness, private religious practices, but not by religiousness, spirituality, length of time, or gender. Age, gender, religiosity and length of time in the U.S. were found to significantly predict heritage cultural orientation but not mainstream or integrated acculturation. Religiosity had the most unique influence in the model. Similarly, these characteristics significantly predicted acculturative stress. Results also indicated that acculturation and acculturative stress significantly predicted fewer psychological problems and lower overall competence. Parent's and adolescent's acculturation were also compared and found to be significantly different only on mainstream cultural orientation. Differences between parents and adolescents on mainstream cultural orientation significantly predicted increased symptoms of adolescent psychological problems, but differences on heritage acculturation orientation predicted fewer problems. Finally, incidence rates of psychological symptoms in this sample were similar to that of the general population These findings suggest that future research should more closely examine what role religion plays during the process of acculturation and how acculturation is related to psychological adjustment among Arab Americans children and adolescents. Future studies should also consider using a broader demographic of Arab Americans in the sample as well as conducting larger epidemiological studies of prevalence rates of psychological problems. Implications for school psychological practice were also considered.
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