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The Impact of Acculturation on the Perception of Academic Achievement by Immigrant Mothers and Their Children

Canadian Council on Learning, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, zzadeh{at}ccl-cca.ca

Esther Geva

Department of Human Development and Applied Psychology, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, egeva{at}oise.utoronto.ca

Maria A. Rogers

Department of Human Development and Applied Psychology, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, maria.fagan{at}utoronto.ca

This study investigated the effect of acculturation on definitions and attributions towards children's school achievement. Iranian and Iranian-canadian immigrant mothers and their upper-elementary school children were interviewed about their definitions and attributions about school success and failure. There were significant effects of acculturation on the definitions and attributions of both mothers and children. Definitions of school success and failure held by Iranian mothers and their children were product-based, whereas the immigrant mothers and their children used definitions that were more process-based. While Iranian mothers attributed their children's school performance primarily to `effort', `family' appeared to be the most frequent attribution held by Iranian-canadian immigrant mothers. The Iranian children consistently attributed academic success and failure to `effort', whereas the immigrant children's responses were variable, demonstrating acculturation to Western belief systems. The findings demonstrate how acculturation influences mothers' and children's beliefs about school achievement through the process of immigration. Implications for theory are discussed.

Key Words: academic achievement • acculturation • attributions • immigrants

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