Week 3 – Acculturation
Pre-recorded lecture clips week 3.
What is acculturation?
What is the difference between enculturation and acculturation?
- Enculturation describes the process of first-culture learning. This happens when people are born. What they learn.
- Acculturation refers to the process of cultural change when you interact with people from another culture (second
culture learning). For example when someone migrates. A very broad way to describe how people learn a second
culture (or third etc.).
Why should we study acculturation? Why is it important to study what happens when people migrate and meet each other.
Because we live in a society in which migration (short and long term) is very common. So, the world is getting more multi-
cultural, there is an “era of super diversity”. Also, it is a highly politicized topic, e.g. how to handle migrants and the
problems they bring.
What is migration? Migration is the movement of a person or a group of persons, either across an international border, or
within a state. “A population movement, encompassing any kind of movement of people, whatever its length, composition
and causes; […]” International Organization for Migration. It can be temporarily and permanent. When someone migrates
to another culture that culture acculturates, but also the persons acculturate. Related: who migrates?
- Economic migrants: individuals who move to a different location primarily for improved employment
opportunities and better economic prospects.
- Sojourners: temporary residents who stay in a new place for a limited amount of time, often for education, work
assignments, or cultural exchange.
- Refugees: people who are forced to leave their home country due to persecution, conflict, or violence, seeking
safety and protection in another nation.
- Asylum seekers: people who have applied for asylum in a foreign country, seeking refuge and protection from
persecution in their home country.
- Displaced people: those who have been forces to leave their homes but remain within the borders of their own
country, often due to conflict, natural disaster, or human rights abuses.
Why would people migrate?
- Push factors (that drive people away from their home country): Lack of opportunities. Poverty. Shortage of food.
Armed conflict. Genocide. Discrimination and/or persecution. Natural disasters. Unemployment.
- Pull factors (that pull people towards a certain country, attractions or opportunities in a destination country that
draw migrants to relocate): Job opportunities. Higher wages. Quality of education. Safety. Freedom. Reunion with
family and or friends. Adventure.
Usually developed countries have more migration. The people that already live in a country are also acculturating.
Mobility: the degree of movement.
- Sedentary: those who maintain a stable and
fixed location, typically within their own
cultural context, and may have limited
exposure to other cultures due to the lack of
movement or inclination to explore beyond
their immediate surroundings.
- Migrant: individuals who have moved from
one geographical location to another,
experiencing intercultural contact as a result
of their relocation and adaption to new
cultural environment.
Voluntariness of contact: this aspect emphasized whether individuals engage in intercultural contact willingly or under some
form of obligation.
, - Voluntary participants : actively seek and embrace interactions with other cultures.
- Involuntary participants: may have contact imposed upon them due to external factors.
All these factors are important for the way people acculturate. E.g. if someone is going to a country for a few months versus
someone is going there for their whole lives. The latter are more motivated to change.
Definitions of acculturation:
- McGee (1898): “the process beginning with savagery and coming up to enlightenment”. This definition includes 4
stages: savagery, barbarism, civilisation, enlightenment.
- Redfield, Linton & Herskovits (1936): “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”.
- Berry (1992): “the psychological consequences of having sustained contact with another culture”. It is about
psychology of individuals people.
- Doucerain et al. (2016): “acculturation is a multilevel, contextually dependent development change process
resulting from a person moving into new cultural environment, with changes taking place at different rates across
a number of domains”.
Section review;
1. What are some of the reasons why acculturation experiences differ from person to person?
Theories of acculturation.
The process of acculturation: contact Influence Change (in both people).
Difficulties in studying acculturation:
- Many different reasons for migrating. This plays a role in acculturation.
- Many different groups of acculturating people. Very difficult to say one thing about all these groups.
- Many different experiences. E.g., depends on personality but also on context: host culture. If you think about
different countries, how welcoming are they for migrants?
- Scholars have different viewpoints (anthropologists, psychologists, sociologists).
- Studied from different disciplines.
- Disagreement about process (directionality) of acculturation.
Theoretical models: directionality of change.
General question: is it possible to internalize and maintain adherence to more than one culture?
If you look at the different definitions, you can see that
there is a difference between them. Some assume that it
is not possible to have more than one culture; the first
three definitions assume a uni-dimensional model. If that
is the case, engagement of new culture inevitably linked
to rejection of heritage culture (Gordon, 1964). Then,
acculturation = assimilation.
This is not very valid. So there are the de bi-dimensional
models: relationships with heritage and mainstream cultures are conceptually independent cultural orientations.
So, there are two dimensions which exist
independently from each other. Depending on the
score on these two dimensions there are 4 categories
in which the outcome of acculturation could fall;
assimilation, integration, marginalization and
separation. Marginalization is the worst outcome of
acculturation and is associated to all kinds of different
problems.
Pre-recorded lecture clips week 3.
What is acculturation?
What is the difference between enculturation and acculturation?
- Enculturation describes the process of first-culture learning. This happens when people are born. What they learn.
- Acculturation refers to the process of cultural change when you interact with people from another culture (second
culture learning). For example when someone migrates. A very broad way to describe how people learn a second
culture (or third etc.).
Why should we study acculturation? Why is it important to study what happens when people migrate and meet each other.
Because we live in a society in which migration (short and long term) is very common. So, the world is getting more multi-
cultural, there is an “era of super diversity”. Also, it is a highly politicized topic, e.g. how to handle migrants and the
problems they bring.
What is migration? Migration is the movement of a person or a group of persons, either across an international border, or
within a state. “A population movement, encompassing any kind of movement of people, whatever its length, composition
and causes; […]” International Organization for Migration. It can be temporarily and permanent. When someone migrates
to another culture that culture acculturates, but also the persons acculturate. Related: who migrates?
- Economic migrants: individuals who move to a different location primarily for improved employment
opportunities and better economic prospects.
- Sojourners: temporary residents who stay in a new place for a limited amount of time, often for education, work
assignments, or cultural exchange.
- Refugees: people who are forced to leave their home country due to persecution, conflict, or violence, seeking
safety and protection in another nation.
- Asylum seekers: people who have applied for asylum in a foreign country, seeking refuge and protection from
persecution in their home country.
- Displaced people: those who have been forces to leave their homes but remain within the borders of their own
country, often due to conflict, natural disaster, or human rights abuses.
Why would people migrate?
- Push factors (that drive people away from their home country): Lack of opportunities. Poverty. Shortage of food.
Armed conflict. Genocide. Discrimination and/or persecution. Natural disasters. Unemployment.
- Pull factors (that pull people towards a certain country, attractions or opportunities in a destination country that
draw migrants to relocate): Job opportunities. Higher wages. Quality of education. Safety. Freedom. Reunion with
family and or friends. Adventure.
Usually developed countries have more migration. The people that already live in a country are also acculturating.
Mobility: the degree of movement.
- Sedentary: those who maintain a stable and
fixed location, typically within their own
cultural context, and may have limited
exposure to other cultures due to the lack of
movement or inclination to explore beyond
their immediate surroundings.
- Migrant: individuals who have moved from
one geographical location to another,
experiencing intercultural contact as a result
of their relocation and adaption to new
cultural environment.
Voluntariness of contact: this aspect emphasized whether individuals engage in intercultural contact willingly or under some
form of obligation.
, - Voluntary participants : actively seek and embrace interactions with other cultures.
- Involuntary participants: may have contact imposed upon them due to external factors.
All these factors are important for the way people acculturate. E.g. if someone is going to a country for a few months versus
someone is going there for their whole lives. The latter are more motivated to change.
Definitions of acculturation:
- McGee (1898): “the process beginning with savagery and coming up to enlightenment”. This definition includes 4
stages: savagery, barbarism, civilisation, enlightenment.
- Redfield, Linton & Herskovits (1936): “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”.
- Berry (1992): “the psychological consequences of having sustained contact with another culture”. It is about
psychology of individuals people.
- Doucerain et al. (2016): “acculturation is a multilevel, contextually dependent development change process
resulting from a person moving into new cultural environment, with changes taking place at different rates across
a number of domains”.
Section review;
1. What are some of the reasons why acculturation experiences differ from person to person?
Theories of acculturation.
The process of acculturation: contact Influence Change (in both people).
Difficulties in studying acculturation:
- Many different reasons for migrating. This plays a role in acculturation.
- Many different groups of acculturating people. Very difficult to say one thing about all these groups.
- Many different experiences. E.g., depends on personality but also on context: host culture. If you think about
different countries, how welcoming are they for migrants?
- Scholars have different viewpoints (anthropologists, psychologists, sociologists).
- Studied from different disciplines.
- Disagreement about process (directionality) of acculturation.
Theoretical models: directionality of change.
General question: is it possible to internalize and maintain adherence to more than one culture?
If you look at the different definitions, you can see that
there is a difference between them. Some assume that it
is not possible to have more than one culture; the first
three definitions assume a uni-dimensional model. If that
is the case, engagement of new culture inevitably linked
to rejection of heritage culture (Gordon, 1964). Then,
acculturation = assimilation.
This is not very valid. So there are the de bi-dimensional
models: relationships with heritage and mainstream cultures are conceptually independent cultural orientations.
So, there are two dimensions which exist
independently from each other. Depending on the
score on these two dimensions there are 4 categories
in which the outcome of acculturation could fall;
assimilation, integration, marginalization and
separation. Marginalization is the worst outcome of
acculturation and is associated to all kinds of different
problems.
