Cultural transitions in first-generation immigrants - Acculturation of soviet Jewish refugee adolescents and parents

This article focuses on the process of acculturation for first-generation S oviet Jewish refugee adolescents and their parents who have resettled in th e United States. First, the extent of acculturation to the new and the old culture is assessed independently. Second. acculturation is assessed multid imensionally, including the constructs of language competence, behavioral a cculturation, and cultural identity. Third, the extent to which life stage differences at immigration affect the acculturation process is assessed. Ov erall. the data suggest that acculturation appears to occur in a linear pat tern over time for most dimensions of acculturation, with acculturation to the American culture increasing and acculturation to the Russian culture de creasing. However, Russian language competence for the parents did not dimi nish with length of residence in the country. Furthermore, an unexpected ac culturative gap was observed between parents and children with respect to R ussian identity, with adolescents being more identified with the Russian cu lture than their parents.