The influence of acculturation on political trust amongst Moroccan and Turkish migrants in the Netherlands.

This research aims to explain to what extent acculturation affects the political trust of Turkish and Moroccan migrants in the Netherlands and to what extent this differs across education groups. A large-scale dataset was used which analyzed social cohesion, inequality, and norms, and values of Turkish and Moroccan migrants in the Netherlands. This paper analyzes acculturation in the form of adaptation and withdrawal. Adaptation refers to the adaptation of migrants towards the host country. This is analyzed through self-identification with Dutch culture, language proficiency, and social contacts with Dutch individuals. Withdrawal refers to migrants not feeling connected to the host country, but rather maintaining their separate ethnic identity and culture. Withdrawal is analyzed through discrimination, and self-identification with ethnic groups. This paper further analyzes to what extent these relationships between withdrawal and political trust differ across education groups, which is referred to as the integration paradox. It is thus examined to what extent adaptation and withdrawal can be associated with political trust among higher and lower educated Turkish and Moroccan migrants in the Netherlands. The findings indicate that the experience with discrimination has a negative effect on political trust. This was found to be the largest effect of acculturation on political trust. Secondly, the effect of self-identification with Dutch culture is found to be positively correlated with political trust. However, there were no effects found of language proficiency, social contacts, and self-identification with ethnic groups on political. Moreover, the integration paradox in relation to political trust was not supported by this paper. All in all, only discrimination, and self-identification with Dutch culture of acculturation are found to influence the political trust of Turkish and Moroccan migrants in the Netherlands.