Acculturation orientations mediate the link between religious identity and adjustment of Turkish-Bulgarian and Turkish-German adolescents.

Radosveta Dimitrova,Arzu Aydinli-Karakulak

doi:10.1186/s40064-016-2688-1

Radosveta Dimitrova, Arzu Aydinli-Karakulak

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1186/s40064-016-2688-1

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Abstract

There is a growing recognition of the need to examine religiousness and conduct research on its influence on acculturation and adjustment among ethnic minorities (Güngör et al. in Int J Behav Dev 36:367–373, 2012. doi:10.1177/0165025412448357). The present study compares Turkish minority youth in Bulgaria and Germany by examining relationships among religious identity, acculturation orientations (i.e., cultural maintenance and adoption) and acculturation outcomes (i.e., life satisfaction and socio-cultural adjustment to the Turkish and mainstream cultures). Participants were 161 youth in Bulgaria and 155 in Germany who completed measures on religious identity, acculturation orientations and adjustment. Results revealed that religious identity and Turkish culture maintenance are more important for Turkish-German, than for Turkish-Bulgarian youth. A multigroup path model showed that for both samples acculturation orientations partially mediated the link between religious identity and adjustment to the Turkish culture, whereas religious identity was directly related both to adjustment to the mainstream culture and to life satisfaction. Findings highlight the centrality of religious identity and Turkish domains of acculturation for positive adjustment outcomes for Turkish youth in Bulgaria and Germany.

Highlights

There is a growing recognition of the need to examine religiousness and conduct research on its influence on acculturation and adjustment among ethnic minority youth (Güngör et al 2012)
We examine the mediational role of acculturation orientations on the relationship between religious identity and adjustment in both groups
Group differences in religious identity and acculturation orientations We examined differences in religious identity and acculturation orientations between Turkish-Bulgarians and Turkish-German groups via a multivariate analyses of variance (MANOVA) with group (2 levels) as independent variable and religious identity and acculturation orientations as dependent variables

Summary

Introduction

There is a growing recognition of the need to examine religiousness and conduct research on its influence on acculturation and adjustment among ethnic minority youth (Güngör et al 2012). Examining religious identity and acculturation orientations during this developmental stage is important because adolescents often belong to multiple social groups and the process of forming a social identity represents a crucial developmental task for them (Kroger and Marcia 2011) This process becomes salient for ethnic minority adolescents who have to navigate among multiple social. Strong religiousness is associated with enhanced adjustment of individuals in general and ethnic minority groups in particular (Friedman and Saroglou 2010). This implication fuels an increasing interest in studying the role of ethnicity and culture in relationship with religiousness, acculturation and adjustment. A focus on Eastern Europe and minority groups in this part of Europe is relevant in light of recent political and socio-cultural

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