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This article explores identity work and acculturation work in the lives of British mixed-heritage children and adults. Children, teenagers, and parents with mixed heritage participated in a community arts project that invited them to deliberate, construct, and reconstruct their cultural identities and cultural relations. We found that acculturation, cultural and raced identities, are constructed through a series of oppositional themes: cultural maintenance versus cultural contact; identity as inclusion versus identity as exclusion; institutionalized ideologies versus agency. The findings point towards an understanding of acculturation as a dynamic, situated, and multifaceted process: acculturation in movement. To investigate this, we argue that acculturation research needs to develop a more dynamic and situated approach to the study of identity, representation, and culture. The article concludes with a discussion on the need for political psychologists to develop methods attuned to the tensions and politics of acculturation that are capable of highlighting the possibilities for resistance and social change. ; peer-reviewed

This article explores identity work and acculturation work in the lives of British mixed-heritage children and adults. Children, teenagers, and parents with mixed heritage participated in a community arts project that invited them to deliberate, construct, and reconstruct their cultural identities and cultural relations. We found that acculturation, cultural and raced identities, are constructed through a series of oppositional themes: cultural maintenance versus cultural contact; identity as inclusion versus identity as exclusion; institutionalized ideologies versus agency. The findings point towards an understanding of acculturation as a dynamic, situated, and multifaceted process: acculturation in movement. To investigate this, we argue that acculturation research needs to develop a more dynamic and situated approach to the study of identity, representation, and culture. The article concludes with a discussion on the need for political psychologists to develop methods attuned to the tensions and politics of acculturation that are capable of highlighting the possibilities for resistance and social change. Adapted from the source document.

This article explores identity work and acculturation work in the lives of British mixed‐heritage children and adults. Children, teenagers, and parents with mixed heritage participated in a community arts project that invited them to deliberate, construct, and reconstruct their cultural identities and cultural relations. We found that acculturation, cultural and raced identities, are constructed through a series of oppositional themes: cultural maintenance versus cultural contact; identity as inclusion versus identity as exclusion; institutionalized ideologies versus agency. The findings point towards an understanding of acculturation as a dynamic, situated, and multifaceted process:acculturation in movement. To investigate this, we argue that acculturation research needs to develop a more dynamic and situated approach to the study of identity, representation, and culture. The article concludes with a discussion on the need for political psychologists to develop methods attuned to the tensions and politics of acculturation that are capable of highlighting the possibilities for resistance and social change.

The relevance of policymaking stems from its utility in helping social systems manage the output of their constituent members by shaping behavioural and procedural processes. Whilst policymaking might be well-meaning, it does not always lead to satisfactory outcomes. Policy may fail in generating uptake or establishing intent. For this reason, the study of the psychological characteristics of citizens is pertinent in understanding reactions to policy. In the present study, we analysed policy communication and reception in Kuwait in terms of the worldviews they advance. We also studied media responses and worldview distributions amongst the public ( n = 1400). Our findings demonstrate both within and between worldview differences in reactions to science policy. We observed an engagement effect between worldviews and their appreciation of science policy. We also observed a within worldviews mobilisation effect, by which differential reactions to science policy are activated once engaged. Our conclusions suggest that policymakers would benefit from a broader management of worldviews and psychological characteristics beyond traditional sociodemographic influences.

Concerns about immigration are salient in the European Union and in Malta in particular. Previous research has demonstrated deep antipathy towards the Arab community in Malta, and social representations of Arabs are mired in a conflation of ethnic and religious categories with negative connotations. This paper presents evidence of the potency, within the public sphere, of negative arguments from cultural essentialism, concerning the integration of Arabs in Europe. The data was obtained abductively from a data corpus containing positive, mixed and negative arguments about Arabs and their integration. Results show evidence of the almost total exclusivity of cultural essentialism. All such arguments posited Arabic culture as an underlying essence that makes integration with Arabs difficult or impossible, yet different arguments were distinguishable by emphasis. Results pointed towards forms of culturally essentialist views that vary in their emphasis of different aspects of cultural essentialism. Reductionist, determinist, bounded and temporal aspects of cultural essentialism were all emphasised by respondents. The essentialist exceptions to negative arguments from cultural essentialism were extremely few in number and were posed tentatively by participants. Their paucity and manner of delivery give strength to the claim that it is strictly an Arabic cultural essence that is deemed to make integration impossible in the eyes of participants. Findings are discussed in light of the communicative functions that these dominant argumentative strategies fulfill.

The recent wave of immigration across European countries has precipitated an unprecedented political crisis in many Western countries. This is compounded by the fact that the large majority of these migrants originate from Arab countries. Research has demonstrated that Arabs are devalued relative to other socioethnic groups. The present study sought to investigate representations of Arabs and their integration. Twenty-one interviews conducted in Malta were used to analyse the logic and structure of argumentation supporting both favourable and unfavourable positions relative to Arabs. The findings demonstrate a variety of perspectives founded on six major themes, namely cultural, sociopolitical, psychological, religious, stigma and economic issues. All views were elaborated and warranted, and served to justify particular forms of social relations that make the integration of Arabs possible but highly difficult. In particular, findings demonstrate a lack of positive appraisals of Islam. These findings suggest that breaking the spiral of conflict between Europeans and the Arab communities they host requires affirmative action to redress the negative representational climate that Arab immigrants need to negotiate. Our study also introduces an innovative method for unpacking argumentation structures that mark representational fields. This serves to understand the ways by which social representations form and transform in everyday social interaction. This understanding is essential in designing smart policy that can cater to the logic of ordinary citizens.

Various forms of political participation are found in democratic societies, and these are diversifying at a steady pace. Scholarly literature presents us with an array of typologies of participation, some of which were conceived theoretically, and others derived from empirical research. This paper studies how political participation surfaces in media discourse in Italy and Greece. Specifically, it seeks to understand the social representations of political participation in both countries between 2000 and 2015, and to see which typologies of political participation are reflected in such representations. A media analysis was carried out on a sizeable corpus of newspaper articles in both countries. Data were analysed using a combination of correspondence and cluster analysis. The results indicate higher internal differentiation and gradualness characterising the social representations of political participation in the Italian corpus. In Greece, there was the presence of more radical ideological alternatives to electoral participation. Moreover, results indicate temporal stability in the themes pertaining to political participation over the years. The main contribution of this paper lies in showing that content pertaining to various typologies of political participation (e.g., relating to influence, in/formality and protest) features in the social representations of political participation in newspaper media. Findings are discussed in view of the temporal distribution of representational content, and by comparing country-specific typologies (for Italy and Greece) with those present in the literature. ; peer-reviewed

A correction update is attached. ; This paper reports the framework, method and main findings of an analysis of cultural milieus in 4 European countries (Estonia, Greece, Italy, and UK). The analysis is based on a questionnaire applied to a sample built through a two-step procedure of post-hoc random selection from a broader dataset based on an online survey. Responses to the questionnaire were subjected to multidimensional analysis±a combination of Multiple Correspondence Analysis and Cluster Analysis. We identified 5 symbolic universes, that correspond to basic, embodied, affect-laden, generalized worldviews. People in this study see the world as either a) an ordered universe; b) a matter of interpersonal bond; c) a caring society; d) consisting of a niche of belongingness; e) a hostile place (others' world). These symbolic universes were also interpreted as semiotic capital: they reflect the capacity of a place to foster social and civic development. Moreover, the distribution of the symbolic universes, and therefore social and civic engagement, is demonstrated to be variable across the 4 countries in the analysis. Finally, we develop a retrospective reconstruction of the distribution of symbolic universes as well as the interplay between their current state and past, present and future socio-institutional scenarios. ; The study is part of the Re.Cri.Re Project (www.recrire.eu), that has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No. 649436 ; peer-reviewed