This article presents an expanded model of acculturation among international migrants and their immediate descendants. Acculturation is proposed as a multidimensional process consisting of the confluence among heritage-cultural and receiving-cultural practices, values, and identifications. The implications of this reconceptualization for the acculturation construct, as well as for its relationship to psychosocial and health outcomes, are discussed. In particular, an expanded operationalization of acculturation is needed to address the “immigrant paradox,” whereby international migrants with more exposure to the receiving cultural context report poorer mental and physical health outcomes. We discuss the role of ethnicity, cultural similarity, and discrimination in the acculturation process, offer an operational definition for context of reception, and call for studies on the role that context of reception plays in the acculturation process. The new perspective on acculturation presented in this article is intended to yield a fuller understanding of complex acculturation processes and their relationships to contextual and individual functioning.

Acculturation has become a well-recognized and important area of study (Berry, 1980, 2006b; Tadmor, Tetlock, & Peng, 2009). Broadly, as applied to individuals, acculturation refers to changes that take place as a result of contact with culturally dissimilar people, groups, and social influences (Gibson, 2001). Although these changes can take place as a result of almost any intercultural contact (e.g., globalization; Arnett, 2002), acculturation is most often studied in individuals living in countries or regions other than where they were born—that is, among immigrants, refugees, asylum seekers, and sojourners (e.g., international students, seasonal farm workers; Berry, 2006b). Acculturation research generally focuses on immigrants, refugees, and asylum seekers, who are assumed to be permanently settled in their new...