Discover more about the broad PsychAcc project
In PsychAcc we strive to map the wide variation in ways of being, thinking and getting motivated.
Schools are becoming increasingly diverse, offering opportunities for students from different cultural and linguistic backgrounds to learn from one another and with each other, thereby preparing the next generation to navigate today’s multicultural society. Yet, at the same time, socially and ethnically diverse schools also face various challenges. In many European contexts, like Flanders, ethnically minoritized students and students from working class backgrounds have less well-being, feel less at home, and show worse academic performance than their ethnic majority peers and/or peers from (white) middle to upper class backgrounds. For over 50 years, scientists in both sociology, psychology and educational sciences have tried to explain and mitigate these inequalities. In recent years, there has been a shift away from pointing at individual level factors to recognizing the important role of the school culture as well as the potential cultural ‘(mis)match’ between students’ and schools’ cultures. In the current research project, we aim to uncover some of the hitherto rather “invisible barriers” to equity in education such as potential discrepancies between students’ typical ways of “being”, thinking, and getting motivated and those that are (often unintentionally) promoted and rewarded by schools. In PsychAcc, we aim to document the wide variety in ways of being, thinking and getting motivated, how they tend to differ across different socio-cultural context and how they may be differentially associated with outcomes such as well-being and school performance. The ultimate goal is not to promote one way of psychological functioning or behaving, but to increase our understanding and appreciation of the inherent variety therein such that education can, in the long run, be attuned to all cultures and associated psychological tendencies of students, such that all can thrive.
A crucial element of the PsychAcc project is that it will identify the diversity in ways of being, thinking and becoming motivated over time and study cultural changes in them. We call this process of change “psychological acculturation” – that is, changes in psychological and behavioral patterns that occur through prolonged contact with another culture. To date, our understanding of psychological acculturation is limited because most studies focus on explicit cultural affiliations of ethnic minorities by looking at their cultural attitudes and identities, and thus focus on minority readiness. PsychAcc extends current (limited) approaches and theories on acculturation by examining whether fundamental psychological processes such as self-image, cognition and motivation – which systematically differ across cultures and therefore implicitly reflect people’s cultural affiliations – are also subject to acculturative changes.
If so, we will further explore which factors at the individual, teacher and school level co-shape students’ acculturative trajectories in these domains over time. Furthermore, we will, for the first time, look at whether different psychological domains (e.g., cognition vs. identity) change at different rates or in different directions, and/or influence one another across timepoints. It is then our goal to explore how different ‘acculturative profiles’ are associated with different student outcomes in terms of well-being and school achievement to increase our understanding of how the complex and multifaceted processes of acculturation relate to students’ thriving.
It is then our goal to explore how different ‘acculturative profiles’ are associated with different student outcomes in terms of well-being and school achievements.
In summary, PsychAcc wants to redefine psychological acculturation.
We will explore the above outlined novel research questions not only among students with ethnic minoritized backgrounds in Flanders, but also among their ethnic majority peers, because acculturation is very likely a two-way process affecting just everyone navigating culturally diverse groups and intercultural interactions. Throughout this process of change, we hypothesize that meaningful intercultural interactions are crucial, because it is in these types of interactions that people may mutually learn to see the world in different ways. In a series of lab studies we will try to simulate such meaningful intercultural exchanges to document, for the very first time, the exact micro-processes that instigate acculturative change. As such, we aim to start opening the ‘black box’ of acculturation and pave the way for future interventions that aim to increase mutual understanding of the world.
In summary, PsychAcc wants to redefine psychological acculturation. No longer as a monolithic (quite stable) process that refers to ethnic minorities’ explicit willingness to participate in society. But as a multifaceted process that affects all domains of the psyche that reflect cultural affiliations in implicit and explicit ways, and that emerges from meaningful intercultural interactions and, as such, affects all of us engaging in diverse socio-cultural worlds.
It is our sincere hope that these deeper insights into “acculturation” and “integration” can ultimately promote greater mutual understanding, social cohesion and thriving in today’s increasingly diverse societies.
The large PsychAcc project consists of four different studies that employ a combination of cross-cultural, longitudinal, experimental, and observational designs to explore both the processes of acculturation and (their impact on) educational inequalities. Our studies mainly focus on ethnic majority and minoritized youth in Belgium. We specifically focus on adolescents (ages 14-18) in secondary schools, because the school context is a primary context for socialization and thus also acculturation. This focus also allows to explore the role of teachers and schools in fostering or hampering acculturative processes and their links with outcomes and lends societal relevance to our potential findings as these may shed light on hitherto invisible barriers to equity in education.
We are currently still conducting these studies. Information on the objectives, design, sample, and specific research questions will be updated over time.
This post is also available in: NL
