Cultural identity and values in intergenerational movement: The multicultural case of the Grand-Duchy of Luxembourg

Migration flows have led to an increase in questions about the multiple cultural influences on individuals. The resulting demographic changes raise in many host societies essential questions related to national belonging, and thus to cultural identity and value systems. While migrating to a new cultural environment, migrant individuals face several challenges and they have to negotiate several developmental tasks using self-regulatory strategies, with correspondingly different psychological outcomes. These issues become even more important in a country such as Luxembourg with a high migrant proportion (47%; Statec, 2019). Little is still known about how second-generation adults who have grown up in immigrant families negotiate the double cultural identity, and about their value profiles compared to the local populations of the country of origin and receiving country. Four diverse subsamples were used out of the broader IRMA project pool, depending on the different objectives of the four studies. In total, N = 506 participants from three cultural subgroups ( LU natives, PT migrants in Luxembourg & PT natives in Portugal) participated in the quantitative part of the IRMA project ( LuN: n = 179; PtM: n = 209 & PtN: n = 118), and N = 20 took part in the qualitative part (n = 10 PtM dyads & n = LuN dyads). Study 1 highlighted the importance of the migration experience as a life-disruptive event that has impacts on individual and family cultures, as well as value systems during the life of migrant families. Study 2, looking specifically at PT migrant families, found a generational gap in terms of adult children’s higher attachment to the receiving culture as well as stronger tendencies towards a compatible identity orientation compared to their respective parents. However, the qualitative part of Study 2 revealed ambivalent feelings about double cultural belonging amongst the Portuguese second-generation adult children. Study 3 therefore focused on the latter and identified four ways of dealing with double cultural frames - blended, alternated, separated (Phinney & Devich-Navarro, 1997) - and expanded the model by identifying a fourth cluster of ambivalent cultural identity. In addition, the survey analyzed how their cultural identity profiles enabled them to achieve personally or socially meaningful goals and values. Blended biculturals used mainly primary regulatory control strategies, which were linked to the most positive psychological outcomes (higher self-esteem & well-being, and low acculturation stress). The ambivalent cluster was the least successful in terms of psychological outcomes (low self-esteem & well-being, and high acculturative stress) using both primary and secondary compensatory regulatory strategies. Study 4, an intercultural comparison between two family generations – one adult child and two elder parents – within three different cultural subgroups – LuN, PtM and PtN – aimed to better disentangle the effects of family, culture and immigration, and thus investigate the different cultural influences and messages reflected in the processes of transmission of values and value profiles. Overall, findings of Study 4 revealed the existence of an intergenerational gap between elder parents and their respective adult children; the presence of a cultural gap between the three cultural subgroups studied, which could be explained by both culture of origin and migration, with specifically an acculturation gap in the sub-sample of Portuguese migrants; and a moderate relative intergenerational transmission across cultures. The latter thus allows for a certain cultural persistence and continuity of a society and its cultural system (Trommsdorff et al., 2004) while allowing for cultural flexibility over generations that could be important for family identity and beneficial for well-being far more than a mere exact reproduction of values over generations (Barni & Donato, 2018)