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The 36-item Asian Values Scale (B. S. K. Kim, D. R. Atkinson, & P. H. Yang, 1999) was revised on the basis of G. Rasch's (1960) model and data from 618 Asian Americans. The results led to the establishment of a 25-item measure named the Asian Values Scale-Revised.
Asian Americans represent one of the fastest growing and highly diverse ethnic groups the United States (U.S. Bureau of the Census, 2002). Between 1980 and 1990, the number of Asian Americans in the United States doubled, mainly as a result of the Immigration Act of 1965 and the U.S. military involvement in Southeast Asia. As of 2000, there were nearly 12 million Asian Americans, representing an increase of 72% since 1990 and a figure of 4.2% of the current U.S. population (U.S. Bureau of the Census, 2002). It has been projected that by 2050 approximately 1 out of 10 Americans will have an Asian ancestry (U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1992). In terms of diversity within the Asian American group, the U.S. Bureau of the Census (2002) has identified no less than 24 different ethnic groups, including Asian Indian, Chinese, Japanese, Filipino, Korean, Laotian, and Vietnamese. Each of these groups has its own unique language, immigration history, traditions, and customs. As a result of these growing numbers and the recognition of the high degree of within-group variability, scholars have focused on identifying psychological constructs that are salient to the experiences of Asian Americans. These efforts have led to the concept of enculturation. First defined and used by Herskovits (1948), enculturation refers to the process of socialization to the norms of one's indigenous culture, including the values, ideas, and concepts that are salient for the culture (Berry, Poortinga, Segall, & Dasen, 1992; Segall, Dasen, Berry, & Poortinga, 1990). Recently, enculturation was defined as the process of retaining one's indigenous cultural values, behaviors, knowledge, and identity (Kim & Abreu, 2001 ; Kim, Atkinson, & Umemoto, 2001). In particular, Kim, Atkinson, et al. (2001) noted that an important dimension of enculturation for Asian Americans is adherence to Asian cultural values; cultural values refer to "universalistic statements about what we think are desirable or attractive" (P. B. Smith & Bond, 1994, p. 52). Asian cultural values that are salient for...