University of PalermoDepartment of Psychology

Giovanna Di Falco, Ph.D.

EMUNI ReS. 2010

Palermo, June 14, 2010

Racial identity

Ethnic identity

Acculturation Acculturation process involves an adjustment or a

change of habits, values and, indirecly, of the identity (Heppner, Park, & Wei, 2006)

“ACCULTURATIVE STRESS”(Berry, 1990; Williams & Berry, 1991;

Rodriquez et al., 2002)

1) The main part of measures for the evaluation of acculturative process is valid only for adults

2) The main part of measures regard linguistic competencies, that are just a little part of acculturation process

Develop-ment

Society Relationship

Understanding the role of cultural belonging for the identity development (individual identity and social identity) of adolescents with migrant parents;

Exploring problems that could be related in encountering a differentsocial and political context.

The sample is composed of 200 adolescents 100 adolescents with both migrant parents (STR sample) 100 adolescents with Italian parents (IT sample)

1. Born in Italy, or living there since childhood2. Have both migrant parents (no adopted

adolescents)3. Age range: 14-18 years old

The control group is chosen by the method of stratified random sample.

MEASURES FLS (Symbolic Drawing of Life Family

Space) (Mostwin, 1976);

DAP (“Test della Doppia Luna”: “The double moon test”, by Greco, 1999, modified to underline borderline and social belonging features);

Short Interview Schedule – designed specifically for this study.

Semantic aspects:

•The semantic class “Family” is used by STR sample more than IT sample (43%)

•The semantic class “Nation” is used by STR sample more than IT sample (77%)

•The words related to “Cultural aspects” are disseminated all along the text of STR sample with a dispersion index of 1

PECULIAR LANGUAGE STR - IT SqmValue

sWords Occur-

rencies619,6 changing 95614,6 go out 231408,0 friends 710380,1 prefer 549317,1 confide 73255,9 spend 34235,2 teachers 173224,7 parents 402209,8 mates 246198,8 places 63191,7 visit 224182,9 chat 196178,2 mother 394169,1 dialogue 176166,9 school 448

It’s possible to extract the main theme of a document by a comparison with another vocabulary (in this case: standard Italian)

The peculiar language extracts the most representative words used in the text compared to standard italian.

In STR and IT texts the mainly represented words refer to development aspect, typical of adolescence.

PECULIAR LANGUAGE STR – IT SUBCORPUS IT & STANDARD

ITALIAN FG>1SUBCORPUS STR & STANDARD

ITALIAN FG>1 Sqm

ValuesWords Sqm

ValuesWords

849,7 change 686,2 Go out538,4 trust 458,7 Like534,0 Go out 420,4 change 387,6 friends 418,5 Friends325,7 teacher 275,3 parents 296,8 attend 228,5 mother 295,0 like 214 Spend time 263,9 pub 195,3 go 261,7 talk 189 colleague 225,0 fight 180,2 study 217,7 spea 178,6 aunt/uncle215,7 Go out 171,2 caste 204,0 school 165,3 go 168,6 parents 164,5 Nice164,5 think 160,2 find 164,2 like 158,5 Prefer158,9 joke 156,7 teachers150,9 guy 153,6 Talk143,3 study 151,2 Play games 136,8 Group of friends 149,7 Father

Dependent Variable

Sum of squaresType III

df F value Sig.

Nation-ality

People 2.88 1 1.56 N/AEmotion 12.30 1 8.14 < .00

1Institution 27.07 1 21.12 < .00

1MANOVA on categories of Richness’ grid.Data show a significative multivariate effect of Nationality: F(196)=11.44, p < .001.

Homogeneity analysis on Graphic grid.52.7% inertia; (values of inertia .31 for the first factor; and .22 for the second one).

Richness: MANOVA on categories’ grid IT sample draws more

symbols tran STR: t (198)=5.05, p<.0001

IT sample draws more symbols about People and Emotion themes.

Belongings:

χ2(3)=12.95, p < .01.The analysis of correct standardized residual, in correspondence of each cell, shows that the difference between observed frequencies and obtained frequencies is attributable to:•Number of groups Until 2, z =|2.2|, p< .05•Number of groups More than 5, z =|3.2|, p< 05

Total of Groups

No one

Until 2

From 3 to 5

More than

5Tot

Nation-

ality

IT 0 30 52 18 100STR 1 45 50 4 100

Total 1 75 102 22 200

Dependent Variable

Sum of squaresType III

df F value Sig.

Nationality 5.46 1 1.83 N/APeople 5.61 1 2.03 N/A

People x Nationality 28.76 1 10.44 < .00

1MANOVA on categories of Richness’ grid.Regarding symbols that represent people, multivariate analysis shows an interactive effect of Nationality and People symbols drawn: F(196)=10.44, p < .001.

StranieroItaliano

Nazionalità

8,00

7,75

7,50

7,25

7,00

6,75

Medi

e mar

gina

li atte

se

21

SOGGETTIFLSDAP

SUBJECTS

The (missing) correspondence between narratives and their graphic representations

“Feeling Italians” Vs. “Being foregneirs”

Difficulty in merging one’s own family, cultural, and social belongings with individual feelings

“ Because in my life I faced many difficulties when I was young.

But you can learn in your life. When I lived in Mauritius my cousins didn’t understand me, I felt

lonely there. My mum and my father lived in Italy. I have suffered in Italy, but also in

Mauritius I have suffered.”

Mauritian girl

Thank youGiovanna Di Falco

giovannadifalco@yahoo.it