Associations of maternal acculturation stress among Turkish immigrant mothers with their children’s psychosocial difficulties

Abstract

In this study we aimed to examine if mother’s experiences of acculturation stress are connected to their children’s psychosocial difficulties. An increasing number of people come from multicultural immigrant backgrounds and live in culturally diverse families, which may lead to additional complexities arising from cultural discrepancies. This may be manifested as acculturation stress, which refers to a range of stress reactions rooted in one’s experiences of intercultural contact. These individual experiences may arise, for instance, from encounters with discrimination, challenges in forming connections with the host culture, and difficulties in maintaining relations with the culture of origin. In immigrant families, the acculturation related stressors emerge on top of general life stressors all families may encounter, requiring additional efforts to cope in various life situations. Based on prior literature, we hypothesized that higher levels of maternal acculturation stress among Turkish immigrant mothers are connected to greater occurrence of psychosocial difficulties among their children.

The data utilized in this thesis was derived from the SIMCUR research project collected in 2009–2014. Our sample consisted of Turkish immigrant mothers and their children living in Germany, Norway, and the Netherlands (n = 367). We created our own index score of maternal acculturation stress and analysed its connections to children’s SDQ scores of psychosocial difficulties via hierarchical linear regression analyses. We formed three models, in which the connection of maternal acculturation stress and child’s psychosocial difficulties was examined first focusing only on the main effect, secondly with confounders included, and lastly in interaction with mother’s highest education level.

We found that higher levels of maternal acculturation stress were linked to higher rates of psychosocial difficulties in their children. The results are consistent with prior literature, although it is important to note that the results and their connections to previous studies should be interpreted with careful attention to specificities of certain immigrant groups. The results suggest that the harmful consequences of acculturation stress may be detrimental to not only the person directly experiencing the stress, but also to the broader circle around them. Providing support to immigrant mothers is essential, since reducing maternal acculturation stress may also promote the well-being of their children.