Mainstream acculturation in superdiverse settings: The beneficial role of intergroup contact with ‘other-cultures’ individuals

Abstract

This work focuses on migrants’ ‘other-cultures’ intergroup contact – contact with individuals belonging to neither their heritage ingroup nor the mainstream outgroup. We test the overarching hypothesis that other-cultures contact is positively associated with mainstream acculturation, especially when contact in the mainstream group is scarce. Study 1 results show that frequent other-cultures contact is positively associated with mainstream identification among Maghrebi migrants to Quebec. This effect is stronger for participants with infrequent, versus frequent, mainstream contact. In Study 2, conducted among Russian migrants to Canada, having more other-cultures friends is positively related to mainstream acculturation only for participants with few mainstream friends. Further, the entry of other-cultures friends into migrants’ network takes place later than heritage friends but earlier than mainstream friends. The current work expands the traditional mainstream–heritage acculturation framework by moving away from binary conceptualizations of intergroup relations and considering other-cultures contact in superdiverse contexts.