Ghuman P A
Department of Education, University of Wales, Aberystwyth, Ceredigion, UK.
Br J Educ Psychol. 2000 Sep;70 ( Pt 3):305-16. doi: 10.1348/000709900158128.
This investigation is part of a wider research project on the acculturation and identity-related issues of South Asian young people in Britain, Canada and the US. There has been no published research on the acculturation of this ethnic group in Australia. The project is embedded within Berry's (1994) theoretical framework of acculturation.
There are two major aims of the research. Firstly, to discover any pattern of acculturation of South Asian young people and to compare it with that of their counterparts in Britain and Canada. Secondly, to validate the existing Acculturation Scale (Ghuman, 1975, 1997, 1999a) with a group of South Asian young people living in a different socio-political context.
The sample was drawn from three high schools--two being in Newcastle City, and one in a rural setting of New South Wales, Australia. A representative sample of 75 boys and girls (aged 14 to 16) from two social class backgrounds took part in the research.
The young people were requested to fill in a background questionnaire on their religion, languages spoken at home, best friend, frequency of visit to a temple, etc. They also completed the Aberystwyth Likert-type Acculturation Scale.
Summated scores on the scale of two social class groups confirmed the previous finding that a non-manual group shows a higher degree of acculturation compared with a manual group. But, contrary to expectations, girls show lower acculturation than boys. The Spearman-Brown coefficient of reliability is 0.82--which is in line with the findings in England and Canada.
The whole sample shows a lower degree of acculturation compared with their counterparts in Canada and England. This is fully contextualised: viz, at the time of research (March 1998) the socio-political of Australia was anti-Asian, due mainly to the impending general election in which immigration from Asia was a significant issue. The mean score of the sample reflects their bilingualism and biculturalism.
本调查是关于英国、加拿大和美国南亚裔年轻人文化适应及身份认同相关问题的一个更广泛研究项目的一部分。目前尚无关于该族群在澳大利亚文化适应情况的已发表研究。该项目基于贝里（1994年）的文化适应理论框架。
本研究有两个主要目的。其一，探寻南亚裔年轻人的文化适应模式，并将其与英国和加拿大的同龄人进行比较。其二，对现有的文化适应量表（古曼，1975年、1997年、1999年a版）在生活于不同社会政治背景下的一群南亚裔年轻人中进行验证。
样本取自三所高中——两所位于澳大利亚新南威尔士州的纽卡斯尔市，一所位于乡村地区。来自两种社会阶层背景的75名年龄在14至16岁之间的男孩和女孩组成的代表性样本参与了该研究。
要求这些年轻人填写一份关于他们的宗教、在家中说的语言、最好的朋友、去寺庙的频率等的背景调查问卷。他们还完成了阿伯里斯特威斯李克特式文化适应量表。
两个社会阶层群体在该量表上的总分证实了之前的发现，即非体力劳动者群体比体力劳动者群体表现出更高程度的文化适应。但是，与预期相反，女孩的文化适应程度低于男孩。斯皮尔曼 - 布朗信度系数为0.82——这与在英国和加拿大的研究结果一致。
与加拿大和英国的同龄人相比，整个样本显示出较低程度的文化适应。这完全是由当时的背景情况决定的：即，在研究时（1998年3月），澳大利亚的社会政治氛围是反亚洲的，主要原因是即将到来的大选，其中亚洲移民是一个重要议题。样本的平均得分反映了他们的双语能力和双文化特征。
