Social capital

This study examined how acculturative stress is influenced by social capital, age, income, education and gender in a sample of 326 Iraqi-Christians from southern Ontario, Canada. Both overall acculturative stress and its individual constructs were tested in a series of logistic regression models. Five hypotheses were generated and three layers of analysis were implemented. First, the contributions of social–capital constructs and demographic variables to overall acculturative stress were examined. Second, the same variables were investigated in relation to the individual factors comprising acculturative stress. Third, the relationships of the social capital factors and demographic variables to acculturative stress for males and females were examined separately. This study found that a significant number of Iraqi-Christian immigrants in southern Ontario experience moderate acculturative stressors associated with the experience of discrimination, change in values, language incompetence, feeling unappreciated and discomfort with the loss of their identification with their country of origin. The results offer increased understanding for social workers who work with Iraqi-Christian individuals regarding the experience of acculturation and acculturative stress. Some recommendations for practice emerging from the results were also provided