Acculturation Questionnaire for Children and Adolescents Test
How the Scales are Structured
Who Usually Takes This Test?
See How You Compare
Below is a preview of how scores are typically distributed across each scale.
Example Questions From the Test
- Never
- Rarely
- From time to time
- Often
- Always
- Never
- Rarely
- Occasionally
- Often
- Always
- Never
- Rarely
- From time to time
- Often
- Always
Acculturation Questionnaire for Children and Adolescents Test - Description and methodology of the test
Young people navigating more than one cultural environment can use the Acculturation Questionnaire for Children and Adolescents Test to reflect on how daily life, belonging, and future plans connect with heritage and host cultures. It is a cultural involvement questionnaire for children and adolescents whose experiences include migration or relocation, and its result offers a two-part profile rather than a single overall label.
What This Assessment Explores
The items cover involvement in the host society and maintenance of the heritage culture. They ask about language use, media, friendships, social-media contact, food, humor, achievements, and future residence plans.
The result separately indicates involvement in the host society’s culture and maintenance of the heritage culture. This profile supports discussion of language, relationships, and future intentions without reducing them to one orientation.
The result has two dimensions:
- Host Society Cultural Involvement (-2-2) measures engagement with host norms, traditions, and lifestyle. Higher scores indicate stronger acceptance; lower scores suggest adaptation difficulties and weaker integration. Bands: Low involvement (-2-0), Moderate involvement (0-2), High involvement (2-2).
- Heritage Culture Maintenance (-2-2) measures preservation of heritage language, traditions, and customs. Higher scores indicate stronger maintenance; lower scores suggest less importance attached to heritage culture. Bands: Low preservation (-2-0), Balanced preservation (0-2), High preservation (2-2).
Methodology and Scientific Basis
Responses use ordered frequency choices such as Never to Always and agreement scales from disagreement to agreement. This format records behavior and attitude across cultural experiences.
For this acculturation questionnaire for children and adolescents, the displayed profile supplies two dimension scores and result bands; no answer-level scoring rule is specified.
The questionnaire is attributed to Jean S. Phinney and John W. Berry. A 2022 edited program by Khukhlaev and Chibisova has a different title and provides context on acculturation; it is not documentation that they created this questionnaire. The questionnaire is conceptually consistent with Berry’s acculturation framework, which treats cultural maintenance and host-society contact as distinct orientations. Berry, Phinney, Sam, and Vedder’s 2006 study adds context on immigrant youth, identity, and adaptation; these sources support construct-level interpretation, not authorship or validation of this online version.
No population norms, reliability coefficients, or diagnostic thresholds are stated for this online version. Responses can also shift with current circumstances, self-awareness, language comfort, and social desirability, so the result is best read as a snapshot of reported cultural orientation rather than a diagnosis.
- Khukhlaev, O. E., Chibisova, M. Yu., & Tkachenko, N. V. (Eds.). (2022). Program for Assessing the Special Educational Needs of Foreign Citizen Children in the Areas of Psychological Well-Being, Social Skills, and Cultural Adaptation. Moscow: Moscow State University of Psychology and Education. ISBN 978-5-94051-284-4.
- Berry, J. W., Phinney, J. S., Sam, D. L., & Vedder, P. (2006). Immigrant Youth: Acculturation, Identity, and Adaptation. Applied Psychology, 55(3), 303-332. 10.1111/j.1464-0597.2006.00256.x
- Berry, J. W. (1997). Immigration, Acculturation, and Adaptation. Applied Psychology: An International Review, 46(1), 5-34. 10.1111/j.1464-0597.1997.tb01087.x
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