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Psychosocial Adaptation and School Success of Italian, Portuguese and Albanian Students in Switzerland: Disentangling Migration Background, Acculturation and the School Context

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Abstract

The Swiss Mutual Intercultural Relations in Plural Societies (MIRIPS) study (n = 1,488) examined the impact of migrant students’ acculturation strategies on their psychosocial adaptation and educational success. The study focused on the comparison of students with an Italian, Portuguese and Albanian migration background, because these three groups differ in their socioeconomic living conditions, educational resources and opportunities in Switzerland according to official statistics. With respect to acculturation strategies, the results partially confirm the integration hypothesis: immigrant students who are oriented towards the heritage culture and students who align with both the heritage culture and the majority culture (integration) and who are interested in their multicultural environment have a better psychosocial adaptation than students who align with no culture (marginalisation). In relation to educational success, a multicultural orientation and a combination of a minority and multicultural orientation turned out to be the strategies of the higher-performing students. Unexpectedly, the three groups of migrants examined in this study did not differ in their life satisfaction, an indicator for psychological adaptation or in their educational success in terms of educational aspirations and German reading skills. Rather than the migration background of the students, other demographic variables such as educational resources of the family as well as factors related to school quality (type of school, quality of social relationships, achievement expectancy of teachers, multicultural education at school) turned out to be crucial for psychosocial adaptation and educational success.

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Notes

  1. Kosovo, Macedonia, Albania, Serbia, Montenegro

  2. On the (re)conceptualization of the construct of culture within acculturation research, see Zick (2010, pp. 85).

  3. In the Swiss MIRIPS study, psychosocial adaptation encompasses life satisfaction, self-efficacy beliefs and sociocultural competence. On the distinction between psychological and sociocultural adaptation, see Ward (1996).

  4. School success was measured by means of the following indicators: school satisfaction, educational aspirations and German reading skills.

  5. Migration background, number of books at home, household goods, language use at home, age, gender, length of residency, peer contacts and enjoyment of reading (Bundesamt für Statistik and Schweizerische Konferenz der kantonalen Erziehungsdirektoren 2002)

  6. The low Cronbach’s alpha can be explained by the large array of topics covered by the acculturation scale (traditions, language, friends, music, food) and the relatively few items.

  7. Linguistic Diversity Management in Urban Areas: http://www.lima.uni-hamburg.de/

  8. The following answer categories were available: secondary school degree, 2-year apprenticeship, 3- or 4-year apprenticeship, 3- or 4-year apprenticeship with maturity, grammar school degree, university of applied sciences degree (techniques, architecture, social work, pedagogy, etc.), university degree and none of these degrees.

  9. Furthermore, an additional reading test in their (other) first language was administered to students with an Italian, Portuguese or Albanian migration background. Due to very limited reading skills in these languages, no scales could be generated.

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  1. University of Teacher Education of Lucerne, Töpferstrasse 10, 6004, Lucerne, Switzerland

    Andrea Haenni Hoti, Sybille Heinzmann, Marianne Müller & Alois Buholzer

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  1. Andrea Haenni Hoti
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Correspondence to Andrea Haenni Hoti.

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This study was carried out as part of the international project ‘Mutual Intercultural Relations in Plural Societies’ coordinated by John Berry: http://www.victoria.ac.nz/cacr/research/mirips.

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Haenni Hoti, A., Heinzmann, S., Müller, M. et al. Psychosocial Adaptation and School Success of Italian, Portuguese and Albanian Students in Switzerland: Disentangling Migration Background, Acculturation and the School Context. Int. Migration & Integration 18, 85–106 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12134-015-0461-x

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