adjustment
Definition
Adjustment refers to the degree to which immigrant minority individuals function effectively within the social and academic structures of the majority culture, encompassing dimensions such as school motivation, behavioral engagement, and norm-compliant behavior. In the school context, sociocultural adjustment captures how well minority youth meet the cultural demands of peer relationships, learning, and institutional expectations. Research treating adjustment as a longitudinal outcome has found that implicit acculturation processes, specifically emotional fit with majority culture norms, predict both gains and losses in these dimensions over time. Among immigrant-descent students in Belgian secondary schools, higher emotional fit predicted increased contact with majority peers while simultaneously predicting declines in school motivation and behavioral engagement, with the most pronounced negative effects appearing among students who perceived high levels of discrimination.
Sources: Jasini et al. (2025)
Related Terms
- emotional acculturation (1 shared article)
- immigrant minority (1 shared article)
- discrimination (1 shared article)
- school (1 shared article)
Applications
Adjustment and Emotional Acculturation
Emotional acculturation, defined as the degree to which immigrant minorities adopt the normative emotional patterns of the majority culture, shows a contradictory relationship with adjustment outcomes. A two-year longitudinal study found that greater emotional fit predicted higher majority-peer contact yet lower school motivation and behavioral engagement, with discrimination moderating the direction and magnitude of these effects. Students perceiving high discrimination showed the steepest declines in adjustment when emotional fit was high, whereas those perceiving low discrimination showed no such negative pattern.
Sources: Jasini et al. (2025)
Adjustment and Perceived Discrimination
Perceived discrimination at school functions as a moderator of the link between acculturation processes and adjustment. When students reported high levels of discrimination, emotional fit with the majority culture significantly predicted increased behavioral disengagement and non-compliant behavior, outcomes not observed in low-discrimination conditions. One proposed mechanism is that adopting majority emotion norms heightens awareness of differential treatment, which in turn drives withdrawal or resistance rather than engagement.
Sources: Jasini et al. (2025)
