For immigrant children, as for adults, cultural change begins when they enter the new country; however, the process of acculturation for children is a more nuanced experience. Not having completedCopyright American Psychological Association. Not for further distribution.1 In this chapter, we use the term acculturation to refer to an immigrant's relationship to both heritage and host cultures as a bilinear process. We use the term enculturation to refer to the general process of cultural socialization that for immigrant and ethnic minority children occurs with respect to both cultures. Some have used the term enculturation to refer to acculturation to one's heritage culture (e.g., Lee, Yoon, & Liu-Tom, 2006). However, because in our conceptualization enculturation of immigrant children and ethnic minorities occurs in the context of both cultures (see also Oppedal, 2006), we avoid using enculturation to refer to acculturation to one's heritage culture. Ultimately, the field may need to generate new terms given the increasing complexity of these constructs in today's global context and multicultural societies.

The study articulates a contextual approach to research on acculturation of immigrants, suggesting that the relationship between acculturation and adjustment is dependent on the cultural demands of the life domains considered. Specifically, the study investigated the mediating effects of adjustment in occupational and social life domains on the relationship between acculturation and psychological adjustment for 391 refugees from the former Soviet Union. The study used bilinear measures of acculturation to the host (American) and heritage (Russian) cultures. Using Structural Equation Modeling, the study confirmed the hypothesized relationships, such that the positive effects of American acculturation on psychological adjustment were mediated by occupational adjustment, and the effects of Russian acculturation on psychological adjustment were mediated by satisfaction with co-ethnic social support. Psychological adjustment was measured in two ways, as psychological well-being, using a measure of life satisfaction, and as symptoms of depression and anxiety, using the Hopkins symptom checklist (HSCL). Life satisfaction served as a mediator between adjustment in occupational and social domains and HSCL, suggesting that it may be an intervening variable through which environmental stress associated with immigration contributes to the development of symptoms of mental disorder.

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