Adaptation of the Vancouver Index of Acculturation to Turkish and Arabic

Abstract

Researching the acculturation processes of Syrian refugee children in Turkey is essential in terms of the mental health of both the host society and the migrant community. To this end, this study adapts to the Turkish and Arabic languages the Vancouver Index of Acculturation (VIA), which has been developed as a bidimensional instrument assessing acculturation in the 11-18 age group. Data were collected from 957 Syrian refugee children as part of the present study. Analyses showed that the two-dimensional structure each consisting of 10 items and named identification with the heritage culture and identification with the mainstream culture in the original version was supported by both the Turkish version and Arabic version. In conclusion, construct, convergent and discriminant validity as well as composite and Cronbach's Alpha reliability coefficient for the Turkish and Arabic forms of the 20-item VIA were determined to be sufficient.