What is called the “acculturation gap” or “intergenerational cultural dissonance,” can occur when immigrant parents adhere to their traditional cultural values and practices while their children begin to adopt the cultural values and practices of the dominant culture in the new country. This experience is especially common among non-Western families who have emigrated to Western-dominant countries, and can sometimes be a source of stress, relationship strain, and even psychological and behavioral difficulties (Choi, He & Harachi, 2008). Family therapy might be one of the best ways to support and assist families experiencing such clashes and challenges.
Perhaps one of the reasons the acculturation gap can lead to such unrest is the importance of cultural identity to self-esteem and well-being. It is well known that an individual’s clear personal identity has a positive effect on mental health. Knowing and understanding one’s self, through “self-beliefs” and a sense of stability and “internal consistency,” has been found to be critical to self-esteem and psychological well-being (Usborne & Taylor, 2010, pp. 883-884). In recent years, researchers have found that cultural identity appears to play a similar role. In addition to clarity of personal identity, clear collective identity may also support and contribute to well-being. Collective identity, or having a well-defined and understood sense of social groups to which one belongs and the ways in which one aligns with those social groups, is another critical aspect of identity. Culture is one of the most important social groups to which people belong, and can have an enormous effect on identity.
It is certainly true that culture, and so cultural identity, is not a permanent, fixed thing. Likewise, people have multiple collective identities, and those might interact in fluid and changing ways. However, research does reflect an essential role played by cultural identity in psychological well-being, through individual understanding of membership in cultural groups, and the “value and emotional significance attached to that membership” (Usborne & Taylor, 2010, p. 884). Within immigrant families, clashes between cultural identities may cause parents and children to lose a sense that their own cultural values are respected or appreciated. As children take on more Western values, parents may feel their child no longer respects their traditional cultural values, whereas children may feel that their parents do not respect their own, emerging cultural identity. These feelings sometimes lead to strain in parent-child relationships.
Another issue which may arise from such clashes and contribute to psychological and behavioral difficulties for children in immigrant families is a lack of clear cultural identity altogether. Learning a new way of being, transitioning from one culture to another, or trying to maintain one set of cultural values while surrounded by another, are all immensely challenging experiences shared by young people of immigrant families. These transitions can leave a child feeling as though they do not have one clear cultural identity, that they have a foot in two worlds, or that they no longer fit well into either world (Chen, et.al., 2014). A lack of belonging may be particularly impactful for adolescents as they begin the additional transition toward adulthood, and struggle to reconcile cultural expectations (Choi, He & Harachi, 2008).
Fortunately, as research has turned more and more to addressing culture in this increasingly multi-cultural world, therapeutic interventions have also started to look towards best practices for supporting individuals and families experiencing acculturation gap. For example, communication is an important part of family relationships, and is key to both cultural preservation and acculturation (Vedder, et.al., 2009). Therapy may be able to help support families in their communication, whether through spoken language, parenting style, or even working at ways to combine cultural values and identities. Research has suggested that strong parent-child relationships and parenting styles are associated with positive psychological impacts and cultural identity processes for both parents and children (Chen, et.al., 2014). Having a professional therapist help to mediate and guide difficult cultural clashes within families might be one of the most efficient and effective ways to support families in navigating cultural clashes, as well as in building stable foundations on which families might maintain strong relationships and cultural identity.
References:
Chen, S. H., Hua, M., Zhou, Q., Tao, A., Lee, E. H., Ly, J., & Main, A. (2014). Parent-Child Cultural Orientations and Child Adjustment in Chinese American Immigrant Families. Developmental Psychology, 50(1), 189–201.
Choi, Y., He, M., & Harachi, T. (2008). Intergenerational Cultural Dissonance, Parent–Child Conflict and Bonding, and Youth Problem Behaviors among Vietnamese and Cambodian Immigrant Families. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 37(1), 85-96.
Usborne, E., & Taylor, D. M. (2010). The Role of Cultural Identity Clarity for Self-Concept Clarity, Self-Esteem, and Subjective Well-Being. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 36(7), 883–897.
Vedder, P., Berry, J., Sabatier, C., & Sam, D. (2009). The Intergenerational Transmission of Values in National and Immigrant Families: The Role of Zeitgeist. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 38(5), 642–653.