ANGLO-AMERICANS AND HISPANIC-AMERICANS PERFORMANCE ON THE FAMILY ATTITUDE SCALE AND ITS IMPLICATIONS FOR IMPROVING MEASUREMENTS OF ACCULTURATION

The present study examined whether the Family Attitude Scale, which me asures family and socialization values, can be used to measure Hispani c-Americans' acculturation. This goal was in response to the criticism that many popular acculturation measures rely excessively on language preference and generation status from which one's acculturation is in ferred instead of being assessed more specifically. Analysis indicated that 62 Anglo-Americans responded significantly differently than 61 H ispanic-Americans on four of the eight Family Attitude subscales but t hat the latter group's scores on the popularly used Acculturation Rati ng Scale for Mexican-Americans did not significantly correlate with th eir Family Attitude Scale scores. Implications for improving accultura tion measures are discussed.