What is the difference between assimilation and acculturation?

Question

What is the difference between assimilation and acculturation?

Answer 1

Thank you for this question which is of utmost interest for a social worker (which I am...). Here is what I found for you:

Cultural assimilation (often called merely assimilation) is a process of integration whereby members of an ethno-cultural community (such as immigrants, or ethnic minorities) are "absorbed" into another, generally larger, community. This implies the loss of the characteristics of the absorbed group, such as language, customs, ethnicity and self-identity.

Assimilation may be spontaneous, which is usually the case with immigrants, or forced, as is often the case of the assimilation of ethnic minorities (see forced assimilation.

A region or society where several different groups are spontaneously assimilated is sometimes referred to as a melting pot.

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Acculturation is the exchange of cultural features that results when groups come into continuous firsthand contact; the original cultural patterns of either or both groups may be altered, but the groups remain distinct. (Kottak 2007)

However, anthropologist Franz Boas (1888, pp. 631-632) argued that all people acculturate, not only "savages" and minorities:

    "It is not too much to say that there is no people whose customs have developed uninfluenced by foreign culture, that has not borrowed arts and ideas which it has developed in its own way", giving the example that "the steel harpoon used by American and Scotch whalers is a slightly modified imitation of the Eskimo harpoon".

Subsequently, anthropologists Redfield, Linton and Herskovits (1936, p.149) developed the oft quoted definition:

    "Acculturation comprehends those phenomena which result when groups of individuals having different cultures come into continuous first-hand contact, with subsequent changes in the original culture patterns of either or both groups".

Despite definitions and evidence that acculturation entails two-way processes of change, research and theory have continued with a focus on the adjustments and changes experienced by aboriginal peoples, immigrants, sojourners, and other minorities in response to their contact with the dominant majority.

Thus, acculturation can be conceived to be the processes of cultural learning imposed upon minorities by the fact of being minorities. If enculturation is first-culture learning, then acculturation is second-culture learning. This has often been conceived to be a unidimensional, zero-sum cultural conflict in which the minority's culture is displaced by the dominant group's culture in a process of assimilation.

The traditional definition sometimes differentiates between acculturation by an individual (transculturation) and that by a group - usually very large (acculturation).

Additionally, "acculturation" has been used by Matusevich as a term describing the paradigm shift public schools must undergo in order to successfully integrate emerging technologies in a meaningful way into classrooms (Matusevich, 1995). The old and the new additional definitions have a boundary that blurs in modern multicultural societies, where a child of an immigrant family might be encouraged to acculturate both the dominant also well as the ancestral culture, either of which may be considered "foreign", but in fact, they are both integral parts of the child's development.

Beginning perhaps with Child (1943) and Lewin (1948), acculturation began to be conceived as the strategic reaction of the minority to continuous contact with the dominant group. See Rudmin's 2003 tabulation of acculturation theories.[1]Thus, there are several options the minority can choose, each with different motivations and different consequences. These options include assimilation to the majority culture, a defensive assertion of the minority culture, a bicultural blending of the two cultures, a bicultural alternation between cultures depending on contexts, or a diminishment of both cultures. Following Berry's (1980; 2003) terminology, four major options or strategies are now commonly called assimilation, separation, integration, and marginalization.

Acculturative stress refers to the psychological, somatic, and social difficulties that may accompany acculturation processes. This was first noted by Redfield, Linton and Herskovits (1936, p. 152), calling it "psychic conflict" that may arise from conflicting cultural norms. Born (1970) and Berry (1980) have theorized that acculturative stress is a fundamental psychological force in acculturative processes. Ausbel (1960) first measured "acculturative stress", and many have since claimed that it is a significant problem for many minority people (e.g., Berry, Kim, Minde & Mok, 1983 [2]; Burnam, Hough, Karno, Escobar & Telles, 1987; Hovey, 2000). However, many studies have found no evidence that acculturation is distressful (e.g., Inkeles, 1969[3]; Rudmin, 2006[4]). In fact, in a study of 55 samples in 13 nations, Sam, Vedder, Ward and Horenczyk (2006, pp. 127-130) found that immigrant adolescents had better mental health than their non-immigrant classmates.