The Acculturation, Habits and Interests Multicultural Scale for Adolescents
AHIMSA
General
The AHIMSA was developed in the United States as a brief, multidimensional, multicultural acculturation measure for youth with a refugee or immigrant background. By means of eight questions, it asks for different areas of life, habits, and interests (including friends, music, holidays, food) whether the adolescent feels a sense of belonging or connection to the host country, the country of origin, both countries, or neither. Four subscores corresponding to the different forms of acculturation are determined: orientation to the host country (assimilation), orientation to the country of origin (separation), orientation to both countries (integration), and neither-country orientation (marginalization). The completion time is less than one minute.
Operation Area
The AHIMSA is a brief, multidimensional self-assessment instrument designed to assess acculturation.
Literature
Unger, J. B., Gallaher, P., Shakib, S., Ritt-Olson, A., Palmer, P. H., & Johnson, C. A. (2002). The AHIMSA acculturation scale: A new measure of acculturation for adolescents in a multicultural society. The Journal of Early Adolescence, 22(3), 225-251.