Adults’ Identity in Acculturation Settings: The Multigroup Ethnic & National Identity Measure (MENI)

Abstract

European societies are facing great challenges not only in successfully integrating large numbers of culturally, linguistically, and religiously diverse immigrants structurally (e.g. into schools or the labor market), but also in fostering the construction of new identities and preserving social cohesion. In this context, it is crucial to understand the commitment people feel to a cultural environment and the way in which such commitment develops, particularly in new cultural settings. However, there is a lack of research on identity development among adult immigrants and natives and a lack of suitable measurement instruments. To address this, we adapted the Multigroup Ethnic Identity Measure-Revised (MEIM-R) for application to immigrant and native adult populations and extended it to measure also national identity. Our aim in the present study was to test the psychometric properties of this new Multigroup Ethnic & National Identity Measure (MENI) in a representative sample (N= 3410) of immigrant and native adults (aged 20-72 years) in a European context, namely Germany. Results based on confirmatory factor analyses support a two-factor structure (commitment and exploration) for MENI and confirm scalar invariance across both the immigrant and native adult populations.

The Challenged Sense of Belonging Scale (CSBS)—a validation study in English, Arabic, and Farsi/Dari among refugees and asylum seekers in Germany

“…Both accounts tend to neglect the emotional dimensions of the sense of belonging. On the one hand, studies focusing on legal membership as markers of belonging (Krzyzanowski & Wodak, 2007;Sicakkan & Lithman, 2005) as well as on identity politics and placerelated aspects of exclusion and inclusion (Castles & Davidson, 2000;Yuval-Davis, Anthias, & Kofman, 2005) hinge heavily on pre-defined categories of belonging to account for personally and culturally mediated emotional processes, or focus only on certain aspects of belonging such as ethnic identity (e.g., Maehler et al, 2019). References to "feelings of being at home," on the other hand, have been criticized for romanticizing belonging (Antonsich, 2010;Yuval-Davis, 2006) and for mainly focusing on potential objects of belonging, instead of defining what these feelings of being "at home" actually entail.…”

“…The existing scales (Sense of Belonging Instrument (Hagerty & Patusky, 1995), Social Connectedness Scale (Lee & Robbins, 1995), Global Belongingness Scale (Malone, Pillow, & Osman, 2012)) are, in their original forms, primarily designed to capture elements of personality or individuals' fundamental modes of relating rather than a context-sensitive feeling or experience. Scales that measure related concepts in migration research, such as the Multigroup Ethnic & National Identity Measure (Maehler, Zabal, & Hanke, 2019) focus on ethnicity or national identity or, like the Cross-Cultural Loss Scale (Wang, Wei, Zhao, Chuang, & Li, 2015), discuss belonging in the context of national privileges-very specific instances and types of belonging. Additionally, existing scales are too extensive for general multi-purpose largescale surveys.…”

Determinants of ethnic identity development in adulthood: A longitudinal study

“…Ethnic identity was assessed with the Multigroup Ethnic & National Identity Measure (MENI; Maehler, Zabal, et al, 2019). Like the MEIM-R scale (Phinney & Ong, 2007), MENI distinguishes the two factors exploration and commitment.…”

“…Schwartz et al, 2012). Maehler, Zabal, and Hanke (2019) extended Phinney's approach to the assessment of ethnic identity in adulthood and focussed on adults with and without a migration background (see Figure 1). The focus of the present contribution is on the ethnic identity of the latter group.…”

Perceived Teacher Discrimination and Depressive Feelings in Adolescents: The Role of National, Regional, and Heritage Identities in Flemish Schools

“…Although the acculturation framework is bi-dimensional, it has been used successfully in other studies as an important theoretical footing to study multiple identification (e.g. Maehler et al, 2019 ) because it allows to hypothesize how people position themselves towards potentially multiple in-groups.…”