Acculturative Stress and Belonging After Migration

This article is a narrative discussion based on selected academic publications and a World Health Organization report. It is neither a systematic review nor an original research study.

Learning a new language, entering employment and establishing everyday routines after migration are not the same as feeling that one belongs. Understanding belonging requires us to consider behavioural adaptation, cultural identity and living conditions separately. This article explores how acculturation can help explain these distinctions and which questions research on biculturalism raises.

Acculturation: a one-way process?

Acculturation is a concept used to describe changes arising from contact between cultural groups. Berry’s (1997) theoretical framework treats maintaining connections with one’s heritage culture and developing relationships with the receiving society as two separate dimensions. This distinction allows us to recognise that participation in a new culture need not require giving up earlier cultural ties. [1]

The model describes four orientations: integration, assimilation, separation and marginalisation. These refer, respectively, to engaging with both cultures, orienting mainly towards the receiving culture, maintaining predominantly heritage-cultural ties, and having limited connections with both cultural spheres. These categories are not personality types or diagnoses. A person’s relationships can change over time and across contexts; social acceptance and exclusion also influence which possibilities are available. [1]

A schematic summary of Berry’s (1997) framework. These are not diagnoses or fixed personality categories. [1]

Language, values and identity may change at different rates

Schwartz and colleagues (2010) highlight the limitations of measuring acculturation through language use alone. Their multidimensional approach considers cultural practices, values and identifications in relation to both the heritage and receiving cultures. It therefore allows for everyday habits to change while values or ways of identifying oneself develop differently. [2]

For example, an adult who works in German and maintains family relationships in Turkish cannot be judged insufficiently adapted on that basis alone. This is an illustrative application of the model, not an account of a research participant or client. When considering acculturative stress, relevant questions concern how a person experiences expectations from different social environments and what tensions arise between them. [2]

Biculturalism does not necessarily mean conflict

Nguyen and Benet-Martínez’s (2013) meta-analysis examined the relationship between biculturalism and adjustment across 83 studies involving 23,197 participants. The researchers reported a positive association between biculturalism and both psychological and sociocultural adjustment. Its strength varied according to the measures used, the domain of adjustment examined and sample characteristics. [3]

This finding challenges the assumption that connections with two cultures must create identity confusion. However, association should not be read as evidence of causation: it does not establish that biculturalism alone produces better mental health. Nor does it imply that everyone must find the same balance between cultures. Combining numerous studies does not remove differences in their methods and contexts. [3]

Belonging is not solely an individual responsibility

The World Health Organization’s 2023 report considers the mental health of refugees and migrants through individual, social and structural factors together. Identity and community support, basic needs and security, and access to care are among its important themes. This approach reminds us that psychological difficulties cannot be explained solely by an individual’s capacity to adapt. [4]

For example, attributing someone’s difficulty with belonging only to their way of thinking can obscure the effects of exclusion. Understanding their experience requires attention to relationships and resources as well as economic, legal and social conditions. Although the report discusses refugees and migrants together, their experiences are not interchangeable. [4]

What can Turkish-speaking adults in Germany take from these findings?

The publications discussed here do not draw on a single sample representing all Turkish-speaking adults in Germany. Grouping together people with different reasons for migration, generations, ages, language experiences and living conditions can conceal important distinctions. These frameworks therefore cannot be used to diagnose an individual or prescribe how they ought to feel.

As a synthesis of the discussion, several questions may be useful: In which relationships does the person feel accepted? When do cultural expectations create tension? Which connections do they want to maintain or redefine? These questions are not an assessment scale. They are starting points for exploring belonging within a person’s own account.

This text provides general information and does not replace an individual psychological assessment.

Generational differences are not a ranking of success

Someone who moved to Germany as an adult and someone who grew up there need not attach the same meaning to “home”. This comparison is an illustrative example for thinking about different life histories, not the reporting of a research finding. For the first person, home might evoke a city left behind and an earlier everyday life. For the second, it might bring together a neighbourhood, the family’s language and family stories about Türkiye.

Rather than declaring one account more “authentic”, “successful” or “adapted”, we can ask which connections matter within each person’s experience. Strong ties with Türkiye need not mean rejecting life in Germany. Equally, conducting most daily activities in German does not necessarily make family history unimportant. These are possibilities to explore individually, not conclusions that can be drawn simply from where someone lives or which language they speak.

An everyday example: different roles within one day

The example illustrates the limits of drawing conclusions about an entire identity from one behaviour. Two silences that look similar from outside might mean different things: one may be a pause for reflection, the other concern about being misunderstood. Which explanation applies can be explored through the person’s account rather than assumed. Examples should therefore help readers refine their questions, rather than offer labels.

Four questions to ask when reading research

1. Who was studied? In which countries do participants live, how old are they and what migration experiences do they have? Sharing a language with the person discussed in an article does not mean sharing the same circumstances.
2. What was measured? Language use, belonging, everyday skills or psychological symptoms? The same word, “adjustment”, does not guarantee that different studies measured the same thing.
3. What kind of relationship was shown? Observing two characteristics together and establishing that one causes the other are different questions. Conclusions need to be read with that distinction in mind.
4. What limitations were reported? Information about methods and samples helps readers judge the conditions under which a finding is meaningful.

These questions are a reading guide for evaluating the sources discussed here. They are not presented as new research findings or as a psychological measurement instrument.

A pause for thinking about belonging

Conversations about belonging need not be limited to asking, “Which country do you feel closer to?” Considering separately the meanings of people, languages and everyday settings can make room for a more detailed account. What someone misses may be a particular relationship, a way of being heard or a daily habit rather than an entire country. This, too, is a question to explore, not an explanation to assume in advance.

References

1. Berry, J. W. (1997). Immigration, acculturation, and adaptation. Applied Psychology, 46(1), 5–34. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1464-0597.1997.tb01087.x
2. Schwartz, S. J., Unger, J. B., Zamboanga, B. L., & Szapocznik, J. (2010). Rethinking the concept of acculturation: Implications for theory and research. American Psychologist, 65(4), 237–251. Open-access article. DOI: 10.1037/a0019330.
3. Nguyen, A.-M. D., & Benet-Martínez, V. (2013). Biculturalism and adjustment: A meta-analysis. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 44(1), 122–159. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022022111435097
4. World Health Organization. (2023). Mental health of refugees and migrants: Risk and protective factors and access to care. Report publication page.