Bicultural competence: The role of acculturation, enculturation, collective self-esteem, and racial identity

The present study examined the relationship between bicultural competence and psychological distress among Latinos/as in the U.S. The study served as an exploratory investigation to test and expand the theory of bicultural competence proposed by LaFramboise and her colleagues (1993). The first aim was to examine whether models of acculturation, enculturation, collective self-esteem, and racial identity predicted and expanded the elements of the model of bicultural competence. The second aim was to determine if there was a relationship between bicultural competence and psychological distress, specifically somatization, depression, and anxiety, which have been most often associated with psychological distress for Latinos/as in the U.S.;Multidimensional and bidirectional models of acculturation and enculturation were used to operationalize and expand the six domains said to be associated with being bicultural, as proposed by LaFramboise and her colleagues (1993). This study also expanded models of acculturation and the model of bicultural competence by including collective self-esteem and racial identity as aspects of biculturalism previously not considered. Collective self-esteem and racial identity were both included to assess power differentials between minority and majority social groups and to address the emotional impact of belonging to a minority group and the resolution of race related stimuli and information.;The extended model of bicultural competence and its relationship to psychological distress was tested through Structural Equation Modeling. The structural (i.e. theoretical) model was proposed to have five unobserved first order latent variables (e.g., enculturation, acculturation, integrated racial identity, collective self-esteem, and psychological distress) and one second order latent variable (e.g., directly measured by latent or unobserved variables; bicultural competence). The goodness-of-fit indices indicated that the expanded model of bicultural competence and its relationship to psychological distress was a poor fit for the data. The results highlighted several theoretical issues related to Latino/a psychology, research, and practice. The results also provided conceptual and measurement issues related to understanding biculturalism among Latinas/os in the U.S. Implications for research and for mental health services for Latinos/as are discussed. It is hoped that the findings of this study will inspire researchers interested in Latina/o psychology specifically, and in cultural adaptation in general.