Identification patterns and well-being in a plurally composed society: Growing up with multiple cultural influences

Luxembourg is one of the most ethnically diverse countries in Europe with a foreign population percentage of nearly 48%. Children are being raised in mixed-national households, attend multilingual educational programs, and interact with people from various ethnic groups on a daily basis. These culture contact situations are particularly challenging for immigrant youth who are being socialized in two or more different cultures as well as for the native Luxembourgers who can find themselves in the minority in certain contexts.
The primary aim of this PhD project is to investigate identity construal processes in adolescence and emerging adulthood within this multicultural context. We are particularly interested in the dispositional and contextual factors that affect cultural identification, behavior-related outcomes, academic performance, and psychological well-being. Another line of research will focus on implicit vs. explicit attitudes towards diversity and migration. These are some of the research questions we will try to answer using self-report questionnaires, experience sampling methodology, lab experiments, and semi-structured interviews. So far, a systematic literature review was conducted with the aim to identify the most frequently used instruments in the assessment of cultural identity and multiculturalism. Based on our findings, we conducted pilot studies to examine the cultural equivalence of these measures in diverse samples.