Acculturation Preferences in the Asturian Educational Context: A Study on the Direct and Interactive Effects of Gender and Stereotypes at School

As a consequence of globalisation, a large number of studies have been carried out on the attitudes and preferences of acculturation of immigrants and host societies, with the aim of observing the different changes that occur in this intercultural contact. These studies have been carried out in places with a large migratory flow; however, it was considered convenient to carry out the same type of studies in regions with less migratory flow, which is why this investigation focuses on a place with a lower migratory flow, such as the Principality of Asturias. Thus, the main objective of this work is to observe whether gender contributes to the creation of different attitudes and whether this is moderating the intensity with which stereotypes participate in the formation of the acculturation preferences of native students in compulsory secondary education. The analysis of acculturation attitudes was carried out on the dimensions of “adopting” and “maintaining” separately, in order to study how these dimensions are affected by each of the variables (gender/stereotype) in different domains. The exploratory results obtained through quantitative analysis reveal that stereotypes affect the dimensions differently in each of the domains. It is also found that gender affects both dimensions, and finally, it is claimed that gender can moderate the intensity with which stereotypes are involved in the creation of acculturation attitudes in almost all domains. These results are discussed in comparison with those found in other studies with different social and cultural groups.