Title Promoter Affiliations Abstract "A Cultural Psychological Approach to Acculturation: Developing tools to capture psychological acculturation and exploring the micro-processes that account for cultural fit in intercultural interactions." "Jozefien De Leersnyder" "Social and Cultural Psychology" "The current research is part of a bigger research program in which I further develop and empirically test a cultural psychological approach to acculturation. This approach centers on the notion of ‘cultural fit’ – i.e., the extent to which an individual’s pattern of psychological functioning is similar to the typical pattern of others in the socio-cultural context. In the coming two years, I intend to focus on two of the four research lines that I outlined to test this novel theory on acculturation. Firstly, I will develop measures to capture cultural changes in cognition, motivation and self-concept in both majority and minority youth in Belgium. Secondly, I plan to explore some of the micro-processes that occur in intercultural interactions and that account for increases in cultural fit, especially in the domain of emotion. For instance, I will conduct an experiment testing to what extent emotional fit in majority-minority dyads is a function of negotiating ‘common ground’ on the meaning of situations." "Related and autonomous: Cultural perspectives on self, acculturation and adjustment" "Karen Phalet" "Social and Cultural Psychology" "How are culturally valued ways of being and relating reflected in different self-construals across individualistic and collectivistic cultural contexts? What happens to the self-construal of acculturating persons from a collectivistic cultural background who either migrate to, or who are born into, individualistic mainstream cultures? Self-construals – how people define themselves in relation to others – differ between cultures. I conceive of the self as culturally informed and socially grounded in specific relationship contexts. My dissertation examines how people across cultural contexts and in acculturation contexts combine relatedness (affective closeness) and autonomy (self-governance) in their self-construals. Relatedness and autonomy are complementary human motives, yet collectivistic cultural contexts (Turkey) promote relatedness more and individualistic cultures (Belgium) value autonomy more. My focus is on the self in relationships with mothers and teachers as key socialization agents. Extending my approach of culture and self to acculturation contexts (Turkish and Moroccan minorities in Belgium), I examine how acculturating persons combine relatedness and autonomy in relation to mothers and teachers who represent heritage and mainstream cultural values respectively. My dissertation addresses three research aims: establish 1) distinct self-construals across different cultural and relational contexts; 2) self-construal in the acculturation context; and 3) its consequences for adjustment. The dissertation consists of six studies which are presented in four empirical chapters (chapters 2 – 5). The chapters are written as stand-alone research papers, preceded by an introduction (chapter 1), and followed by a discussion (chapter 6).            To establish distinct self-construals across cultures and relationships (aim 1), Study 1 (Chapter 2) and 2 (Chapter 3) compare relatedness and autonomy in relation to mother and teachers across Turkish and Belgian students. As expected, Turkish students were more related and less autonomous than Belgians in relation to their teachers. In relation to their mothers, however, Turkish students were no less autonomous than Belgians. In Study 2 (not in Study 1) Turkish students were more related to their mothers than Belgians and relatedness was also less conflicting with autonomy.            To examine self-construal in acculturating persons (aim 2), Studies 3 (Chapter 3), 4, 5 (Chapter 4) and 6 (Chapter 5) assess relatedness and autonomy in minority samples in Belgium. In line with expected cultural differences, minorities were more related and less autonomous than majority Belgians in relation to both mothers and teachers. Their self-construal was affected by acculturation preferences as well as actual acculturation: those who prefer heritage cultural maintenance were more related; those who prefer mainstream cultural contact more autonomous; with least conflict between relatedness and autonomy in those who integrate both cultures. Also, minorities’ exposure to the mainstream culture in school and language mastery predicted autonomy (not relatedness) over time.            To test adjustment correlates of self-construal in acculturating youth (aim 3); Study 6 (chapter 5) compares minority and majority relatedness and autonomy in relation to teachers. While relatedness was generally adaptive for school engagement and achievement, autonomy was adaptive for majority achievement only. For minority youth, the adaptive value of autonomy was conditional on high relatedness.To conclude, my research articulates cultural differences and acculturation processes through the lens of people’s situated and evolving self-construals of autonomy and relatedness to others. " "A Cultural Psychological Approach to Acculturation." "Jozefien De Leersnyder" "Social and Cultural Psychology" "In the current research program, I further develop and empirically test a cultural psychological approach to acculturation that centers on the notion of ‘cultural fit’ – i.e., the extent to which an individual’s pattern of psychological functioning is similar to the typical pattern of others in the socio-cultural context. I start from the cultural psychological insights that people are encouraged and rewarded to fit their socio-cultural context. I then bring these insights into acculturation psychology to argue that when people migrate to another socio-cultural context not only their explicitly endorsed cultural attitudes and identities may change – as has been the focus of traditional acculturation research – but that their new cultural engagements may also affect the ways in which they feel, think and act, such that immigrant minorities may come to fit their new/other socio-cultural context. Over the next 10 years, I plan to focus on four research lines to empirically test this novel theory, thereby drawing on both my expertise and previously gathered preliminary evidence in the domain of emotion. Whereas Research Line 1 aims to document the acculturation of a wider range of psychological processes and Research Line 2 aims to map the complex interplay between the acculturation of explicit (e.g., identity) and implicit (e.g., emotion) domains across time and across different social contexts, Research Line 3 focuses on the micro-processes of socialization that occur in intercultural interactions, and that may account for psychological acculturation and cultural fit. A final research line cuts across all other three to address the question how acculturation – in its complex, multi-faceted and context-dependent form – is associated with minorities’ well-being and educational outcome." "TRajectories of Acculturation and Contact in Ethnically diverse Social networks" "Karen Phalet" "Social and Cultural Psychology" "Across Europe even high-achieving children of immigrants are at risk of underperforming and disengaging from school, with long-lasting consequences for their future life chances in today’s knowledge economy (OECD, 2012). Ethnic inequalities are not fully explained by individual abilities or family resources on the side of minority students (Heath & Brinbaum, 2014); and cross-national comparison suggests the key role of different intergroup climates, with less unequal achievement in less segregated and more integrationist societies and school systems (Alba, Sloan & Sperling, 2011; Crul, Schneider & Lelie, 2013). Accordingly, Belgium is among the most unequal countries with large ‘ethnic penalties’ on early achievement and a widening gap between minority and majority careers (Baysu & Phalet, 2012), while Britain evinces smaller penalties, a narrowing gap, and even ‘ethnic premiums’ with some minorities outperforming the majority (Heath & Brinbaum, 2014). Against this backdrop, this proposal focuses on the school environment as proximal intergroup context of minority trajectories. Looking beyond school composition effects (Goldsmith, 2011), we will examine daily intergroup contact and acculturation processes in ethnically diverse school-based networks as a promising yet under-researched explanation of the diverging trajectories of minority and majority students. Moreover, we study teachers as ‘diversity managers’ who define students’ intergroup contact and acculturation experiences in diverse networks of students." "Unpacking the Black Box of Emotional Acculturation." "Batja Gomes de Mesquita" "Social and Cultural Psychology" "The current project aims to gain more insight into emotional acculturation, that is the process in which immigrant minorities patterns of emotional experience change as a function of their engagement in a new cultural context. My PhD-research provided first evidence for the existence of this phenomenon and for its associations with both relational and psychological well-being. However, the exact nature of emotional acculturation is still largely a black box. First, because we previously established this process and its positive effect on well-being by calculating immigrants fit with respect to the patterning of a broad range of emotions, we do not know yet if all or only specific (groups of) emotions change in the process of acculturation, nor whether changes in some emotions matter more than others for well-being. Second, as a first approach to emotional acculturation, we excluded emotions that had different meanings across cultures before calculating emotional fit. A next step would be to look at the acculturation of precisely those emotions that are non-equivalent to begin with, and to see if the meaning of these emotions shifts during the process of acculturation. Third, we have found that, on average, emotions acculturate, but we do not know whether the new and old emotional repertoires hybridize or whether they co-exist. By re-analyzing existing data-sets and the data of an already conducted experiment, the current project thus aims to shed light on i) which specific (groups of) emotions acculturate; ii) whether acculturation only affects the patterning or also the meaning of emotions and iii) whether immigrants form hybrids of the old and new emotional patterns or switch between the two." "On the same campus? Acculturation, discrimination and intergroup relations between Turkish and Belgian descent university students" "Ides Nicaise" "Professional Learning & Development, Corporate Training and Lifelong Learning" "Much research has been devoted to investigating the acculturation processes of the children of immigrants in Western Europe. One particular focus has been on the acculturation of children of Turkish immigrants, with a significant degree of scholarly attention paid to debates on integration and education. The present dissertation offers a contribution to this scholarly debate by analysing the acculturation experiences and perspectives of both Turkish and Belgian descent students in higher education in Flanders (the northern part of Belgium).  The review of the state of the art in acculturation research presented in the first part of the dissertation reveals that several blind spots remain. First, the field has overlooked the acculturation processes of ethnic majority individuals. This is puzzling since acculturation is defined as a mutual adaptation process. This narrow focus on ethnic minority experiences limits our understanding of acculturation across society by overlooking the way ethnic majority groups think and act about intergroup contact. Second, acculturation research has focused little on a very salient factor that likely hinders acculturation in educational settings—namely, minority student experiences ofdiscrimination, whether from peers in the classroom, or educators. Third, the research has tended to overlook the role of peer relations—namely, contact and friendship—in advancing or impeding successful acculturation. While clearly salient in the acculturation process, limited scholarly attention has been given to understanding what drives or hinders students’ interpersonal outreach and friendship formation in multi-ethnic educational settings. Finally, acculturation studies in Western Europe have paid scant attention to the institutional context—namely, the way that university policies affect how ethnic minority and majority students experience acculturation in the classroom (and on-campus more generally). This dissertation seeks to address these limitations in the field of acculturation research and shed much-needed light on how students in the specific domain of higher education experience and navigate intercultural exigencies.  The second part of the dissertation presents the empirical chapters. These chapters are based on data collected through in-depth qualitative interviews with Turkish and Belgian descent students in one higher education setting in Flanders. Focusing on the acculturation experiences and views of these students offers several insights. First, despite acculturation being defined as a mutual adaptation process, members of ethnic majority groups consider it responsibility for immigrants and their descendants, perpetuating an asymmetrical understanding of acculturation. Second, Turkish Belgian students experience various forms of discrimination and microaggressions by teachers and peers across the secondary school and higher education. These findings strongly suggest that the very institutions charged with facilitating student acculturation reproduce a range of discrimination experiences for ethnic minority students. Third, while acculturation research is often focused on the implications of acculturation strategies for intergroup outcomes, the findings from the empirical studies underline that ethnic minority students and those from the ethnic majority differ in the way they both think about intergroup contact and approach it in practice—namely, reaching out to peers and forming collegial relations and friendships. Homophily preferences, social exclusion, and the distinct meeting opportunities afforded by the relatively more ethnically diverse university setting are the key drivers of patterns of friendship development—both inside and outside the ethnic group—for Turkish Belgian students. For Belgian descent students, in contrast, the findings highlight barriers stemming from intergroup anxiety, negative assumptions, and stereotypes that underpin the lack of open and meaningful intergroup relations for this cohort. Finally, the findings indicate that a range of institutional policies and practices—including around acculturation itself—are central to the experience of acculturation on campus, often acting to hinder successful acculturation by excluding ethnic minority students. The results of this dissertation have significant implications for policy and practice. First, the findings highlight the need for a greater focus on equity. In particular, both institutional policies/practices and patterns of interpersonal contact are failing ethnic minority students, who experience discrimination on both counts. This limits the chances of successful intergroup outcomes on college and university campuses. Second, the findings show that encouraging successful intergroup contact and engagement requires that enduring experiences of discrimination and exclusion among ethnic minority students be addressed and intergroup knowledge, sensitivity and empathy within the ethnic majority promoted. Third, all university and college policies must reflect and advance full inclusion—and discourage discrimination, including indirect or latent forms—so that students’ distinct interests and cultural backgrounds are recognized, valued, and promoted. Suggested steps include promoting diversity in the student body and staff, providing students with spaces for cultural learning and expression, incorporating diverse experiences and views in the curriculum, and putting greater emphasis on fighting discrimination.   " "The (un)told Mission History of the Sisters of the Society of Jesus Mary Joseph (jmj) in India: A History of Identity Formation of Missionary Generations Shifting between Dutch Legacy and Indian Inculturation (1904 – 1969)" "Dries Bosschaert" "Research Unit of History of Church and Theology" "Since their arrival in India in 1904 the JMJ missionary sisters have continuously advocated for the advancement of young girls and women through education, health care and self-sustainable programs, assisting them in constructing their identities in Andhra Pradesh, India. As with other women in the history of church and theology, their role is, however, often overlooked. This research focusing on the historical identity formation of the JMJ sisters and the centrality of the empowering of women and girls herein will trace (i) the lived experiences of the sisters of Jesus Mary Joseph (JMJ) from Netherlands and Australia who travelled to India in 1904 and 1920, (ii) the native women who joined them as Handmaids of Mary and (iii) the administration shift from Dutch heritage to Indian Inculturation up to the 1960s. The voices and stories of these religious women are generally unknown, and their experiences and identities have not been properly documented. Through textual analysis, archival research, and oral history, this project will evaluate, hear from, and report on these missionary women and thus contribute to the ongoing work of the empowerment of women in India; thus aligning itself with SDG5." "International Cultivation - processes of enculturation in a non-American culture." "Steven Eggermont, Jan Van den Bulck" "Leuven School for Mass Communication Research" "Reserarch on international Cultivation - processes of enculturation in a non-American culture."