Linguistic, affective, parental, and educational contributions to the bicultural identity development of Balkan minority adolescents.

This study investigated linguistic, affective, parental, and educational contributions to bicultural identity, in two samples of younger (13- to 14-year-old; N = 95) and older (16- to 17-year-old; N = 67) bilingual adolescents, who were immigrants or belonged to ethnic minority communities in the Balkans. While bicultural identity level was not differentiated as a function of age group, there was an age-related shift in its predictors. Bicultural identity level was significantly predicted by perceived educators' attitudes toward linguistic/cultural diversity in the younger adolescent group, but by personal affective states (motivation and attitudes) toward the mainstream language in the older adolescent group. Implications of the findings are discussed regarding educational and family practices that would facilitate biculturalism in minority adolescents.

Biculturalism, linguistic distance, and bilingual profile effects on the bilingual influence on cognition: A comprehensive multipopulation approach.

The idea that being bilingual benefits one's cognitive development and performance has been greatly challenged over the last years. If such an effect exists, as some studies continue to show, it might actually be restricted to particular contexts and bilingual profiles; not unlikely, considering the enormous diversity in the latter across the world. In this study, we assessed 4 different bilingual populations (N = 201) and 2 monolingual populations (N = 105), in the Balkan region. We formed bilingual groups based on (a) acculturation strategy (bicultural vs. monocultural), (b) linguistic distance, as well as (c) bilingual profile (balanced vs. unbalanced), based on linguistic, affective, and acculturation measures and cluster analysis. Beyond prior work, this allowed us to explore the specific conditions under which any cognitive advantage may be observed in bilinguals. We did not find systematic evidence for positive effects of bilingualism, biculturalism, or a balanced bilingual profile on inhibitory control, cognitive flexibility, monitoring, and proactive-reactive control management. The only evidence pointing to an advantage was restricted to Bosnian-Albanian bilinguals (linguistic distance analyses) and their general monitoring capacity. Acculturation strategy though, played an important role in shaping the bilinguals' language profile, and appeared to have independent effects on cognition from bilingualism. On this basis, acculturation should be considered in future explorations of bilingual cognitive development. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).