Acculturation &

Socialization
Uzma Aleem
Acculturation

 Acculturation refers to the processes that occur

when different individuals or groups of people
meet and exchange aspects of their culture.
 Due to advances

in transportation, communication,
and technology,
 there has been a significant increase in the

interactions among different cultures.

 As a result, understanding acculturation, and

learning how to accomplish it effectively, has

become vital to the future of the world.
History

 Probably one of the first academic accounts of the process

of acculturation appears in Plato's Laws, written in the
fourth century B.C.E.
 In his Laws, Plato identified the tendencies in human
beings to travel and to imitate strangers.
 These combine to form new cultural practices. Being
Greek, Plato argued that such practices should be
minimized to the greatest degree possible for the sake of
preserving a superior Greek culture.
 Early codes of law, for example, the Old Testament Laws
of Moses and the Babylonian Law of Hammurabi, were
written for the purpose of stabilizing one's own cultural
practices and reducing acculturative change.
 John Wesley Powell is credited with coining the word
acculturation, first using it in an 1880 report by the
U.S. Bureau of American Ethnography.
 In 1883, Powell defined "acculturation" as the
psychological changes induced by cross-cultural
imitation.
 Acculturation is thus the exchange of cultural
features as a result of a continuous firsthand
contact between different cultural groups. Either
one or both groups may change their original
cultural patterns, but the two groups remain
distinct.
In the traditional definition of the
term,
 Acculturation is the process of acquiring aspects of a
foreign culture by an individual, or a group of
people, who were born in a different cultural sphere.
 New applications of the term relate to modern

multicultural societies, where a child of an

immigrant family might be encouraged to
acculturate both the culture where they live and their
ancestral culture, either of which may be considered
"foreign," but are, in fact, both integral parts of the
child's development. According to this new definition
of the term, the acculturation process can be either
on a group or an individual level.
Enculturation Vs Acculturation
 The term, however, needs to be differentiated
from the term enculturation, which is applied
when infants or very young children are born
in a new culture, and simply learn that culture
as their own. Such enculturation can also be
called socialization.
Group-Level Acculturation

 On the group level, the acculturation process can be

seen as a massive intake of another culture's traits,
incorporating them as part of one's own culture.
 This process usually happens when a foreign culture

is perceived as more advanced, either technologically

or in any other sense, than the original culture.
 For example, Urdu language incepted by

acculturation
 the Chinese written language Hanzi was taken, with

various degrees of modification, by places that

previously had no written records: in Japan as Kanji,
in Korea as Hanja, and in Vietnam as Chu Nom.
 In situations of continuous contact, cultures have
exchanged and blended foods, music, dances, clothing,
tools, and technologies.
 The result of a group-level cultural interaction can be
seen in the example of “pidgin” languages. “Pidgin” is a
mixed language that developed to help members of
different cultures communicate with each other,
 usually in situations involving trade or colonialism.
 Pidgin English, for example, is a simplified form of
English. It blends English grammar with that of a native
language, and was first used in Chinese ports. Similar
pidgins have developed in Papua New Guinea and West
Africa.
acculturation has an irreversible impact
that damages the recipient culture
 However, sometimes the acculturation has an irreversible impact
that damages the recipient culture.
 This is the case of many indigenous peoples, such as First Nations

of Canada, Native Americans in the United States, Taiwanese

aborigines, and Australian aborigines, who have almost completely
lost their traditional culture (most evidently language) and replaced
it with the dominant new culture.
 Such detrimental cases are related to assimilation, which results in a

loss of many, if not all, of the characteristics of the original culture.

 Assimilation often results in the total absorption of a minority

culture into a dominant culture, and thus the region where

assimilation is occurring is sometimes referred to as a "melting pot."
Two opposing tendencies play roles in such a "melting pot"—one
that strives to equalize all cultures and blend them into one, and the
other that tends to maintain cultural identity and uniqueness.
Individual-Level Acculturation
(Transculturation)
 Transculturation, or individual-level
acculturation, happens on a smaller scale with a
less visible impact.
 This most often occurs to first-generation

immigrants, for whom transculturation is most

difficult due to the lack of precedents in their
family.
 The speed of transculturation varies depending

on the recipient’s interest and motivation.

 Several types of acculturation are possible as a

result of this process:

  Assimilation: when one desires minimal or no
contact with one’s culture of origin, and keeps
frequent contact with the host culture.
 Integration: when one keeps high involvement

with one’s culture of origin, and at the same

time has high involvement with the host culture.
 Separation: when one maintains high

involvement with the culture of origin, but

prefers minimal involvement with the host
culture.
 Marginalization: when one desires no contact
with either one’s culture of origin or a host
culture.
 Transmutation: when one decides to identify

with a third culture, which is often a

combination of both the culture of origin and a
host culture.
 Inevitably, with each generation, the dominant

culture gradually becomes the dominantly

acculturated one for the immigrants'
descendants.
 Another common, but less lasting effect of
individual-level acculturation occurs when a
traveler spends some time in a foreign place,
away from his or her own culture. For
example, he or she may pick up some
regional vocabulary (especially if the
languages are in the same family of
languages), or may habituate to some local
customs and traditions.
Acculturative Stress

 After moving to a new culture, individuals meet many

challenges: new language, different customs and laws,
distinct norms of social behavior, etc.
 Facing such challenges often brings a certain amount of
stress, known as acculturative stress.
 Research has shown that acculturative stress is an important
factor in the mental health of immigrants, as it increases the
risk for various psychological problems. Several variables are
associated with the degree of acculturative stress.
 The greater the differences between the two cultures, the
higher the stress. The reason for moving to the new culture
is a significant factor, as is the degree of receptiveness of
the host society.
 In the multicultural world in which we now live, acculturation is a
process that more and more people experience every day.
 As the world is becoming one "global village," it is easier than ever to
move from one part to another, and to transition from one culture to
another.
 The massive human migrations that took place in the nineteenth and
twentieth centuries, and which continue on smaller scales today,
brought more and more cultures into transition.
 International tourism has led to much greater contact between people
of different cultures. With this constant flux, people become more
knowledgeable about different cultures, and at the same time more
understanding of cultural differences.
 Cultures become recognized for their inherent value, as well as for their
contribution to diversity in the world. Intercultural identities play an
important role in this, bridging the gap between once distant cultures.
  
 Unfortunately, as immigrant populations often
suffer discrimination at the hands of the
dominant culture conflicts between the
different cultures still erupt, for example
African immigrants in France in 2005. Better
understanding of the process of acculturation,
which leads to better support for those from
both cultures, is essential to achieve peaceful
relationships among all peoples of the World
Socialization
 Socialization is the process through which a
person, from birth through death, is taught
the norms, customs, values, and roles of the
society in which they live.
 This process serves to incorporate new

members into a society so that they and it

can function smoothly. It is guided by family,
teachers and coaches, religious leaders,
peers, community, and media, among others.
Socialization typically occurs in two
stages
 Primary socialization takes place from birth
through adolescence and is guided by
primary caregivers, educators, and peers.

 Secondary socialization continues

throughout one's life, and especially
whenever one encounters new situations,
places, or groups of people whose norms,
customs, assumptions, and values may differ
from one's own. 
PURPOSE OF SOCIALIZATION
 Socialization is the process by which a person learns to be a
member of a group, community, or society. Its purpose is to
incorporate new members into social groups, but it also serves the
dual purpose of reproducing the groups to which the person
belongs. Without socialization, we would not even be able to have a
society because there would be no process through which the
norms, values, ideas, and customs that compose a society could be
transmitted
  
 It is through socialization that we learn what is expected of us by a
given group or in a given situation.
  
 In effect, socialization is a process that serves to preserve social
order by keeping us in line with expectations. It is a form of social
control. 
goals of socialization
 The goals of socialization are to teach us to
control biological impulses as children, to
develop a conscience that fits with the norms
of society, to teach and develop meaning in
social life (what is important and valued), and
to prepare us for various social roles and how
we will perform them.
PROCESS OF SOCIALIZATION IN
THREE PARTS
 Socialization is an interactive process that involves social
structure and social relations between people. While many
people think of it as a top-down process by which
individuals are directed to accept and internalize the norms,
values, and customs of the social group, it is, in fact, a two-
way process. People often push back on the social forces
that work to socialize us, invoking their autonomy and free
will, and sometimes changing norms and expectations in the
process. But for now, let's focus on the process as it is
directed by others and by social institutions.
  
 Sociologists recognize that socialization contains three key
aspects: context, content and processes, and results.
 The first, context, is perhaps the most defining
feature of socialization, as it refers to culture,
language, the social structures of a society (like
hierarchies of class, race, and gender, among
others) and one’s social location within them.
 It also includes history, and the people and
social institutions involved in the process. All of
these things work together to define the norms,
values, customs, roles, and assumptions of a
particular social group, community, or society.
 Because of this, the social context of one’s life is a significant
determining factor in what one’s process of socialization will entail,
and what the desired results or outcome of it will be.
  
 For example, the economic class of a family can have a significant
effect on how parents socialize their children.
 Sociological research conducted in the 1970s found that parents
tend to emphasize the values and behaviors that are most likely to
produce success for their children, given the likely trajectory of
their lives, which depends in large part on economic class. Parents
who expect that their children are likely to grow up to work in blue
collar jobs are more likely to emphasize conformity and respect for
authority, while those who expect their children to go into creative,
managerial, or entrepreneurial roles are more likely to emphasize
creativity and independence.
Likewise, gender stereotypes and the patriarchal gender hierarchy
of U.S. society exert strong influence on socialization processes.
 Cultural expectations for gender roles and gendered behavior are

imparted to children from birth through color-coded clothes, toys

that emphasize physical appearance and domesticity for girls (like
play makeup, Barbie dolls, and play houses), versus strength,
toughness, and masculine professions for boys (think toy fire
engines and tractors).
 Additionally, research has shown that girls with brothers are

socialized by their parents to understand that household labor is

expected of them, and thus not to be rewarded financially, while
boys are socialized to view it as not expected of them, and so
they are paid for doing chores, while their sisters are paid less or
not at all.
 School is an important area of socialization for children,
adolescents, and even young adults when they are in
university. In this setting, one might think of the classes and
lessons themselves as the content, but really, in terms of
socialization, the content is information we are given about
how to behave, follow rules, respect authority, follow
schedules, take responsibility, and meet deadlines. The
process of teaching this content involves social interaction
between teachers, administrators, and students in which rules
and expectations are posted in writing, regularly spoken
allowed, and behavior is either rewarded or penalized
depending on whether it is aligned or not with those rules
and expectations. Through this process, normative rule-
abiding behavior is taught to students in schools.
  
 But, of particular interest to sociologists are the "hidden curriculums"
that are also taught in schools and play formative roles in socialization
processes. Sociologist C.J. Pasco revealed the hidden curriculum of
gender and sexuality in American high schools in her celebrated book
Dude, You're a Fag. Through in-depth research at a large high school
in California, Pascoe showed how teachers, administrators, coaches,
and school rituals like pep rallies and dances work together to
illustrate through talk, interaction, and the doling of punishment that
heterosexual couplings are the norm, that it is acceptable for boys to
behave in aggressive and hypersexualized ways, and that black male
sexuality is more threatening than that of white males. Though not an
"official" part of the schooling experience, this hidden curriculum
serves to socialize students into dominant social norms and
expectations on the basis of gender, race, and sexuality.
 STAGES AND FORMS OF SOCIALIZATION
 Sociologists recognize two key forms or stages of socialization: primary and
secondary. Primary socialization is the stage that occurs from birth through
adolescence. It is guided by family and primary caregivers, teachers, coaches and
religious figures, and one's peer group.
  
 Secondary socialization occurs throughout our lives, as we encounter groups and
situations that were not a part of our primary socialization experience. For some
this includes a college or university experience, where many encounter new or
different populations, norms, values, and behaviors. Secondary socialization also
takes place where we work. It is also a formative part of the travel process
whenever a person visits a place where they have never been, whether that place
is in a different part of the city or half-way around the world. When we find
ourselves a stranger in a new place, we often encounter people with norms,
values, practices, and languages that may differ from our own. As we learn about
these, become familiar with them and adapt to them we are experiencing
secondary socialization.
  
 Sociologists also recognize that socialization takes some
other forms, like group socialization. This is an important
form of socialization for all people and occurs throughout
all stages of life. An example of this that is easy to grasp is
that of peer groups of children and teens. We can see the
results of this form of socialization in the way kids talk, the
kinds of things they talk about, the topics and personalities
that they are interested in, and the behaviors they engage
in. During childhood and adolescence, this tends to break
down along gender lines. It is common to see peer groups
of either gender in which members tend to wear the same
styles or items of clothing, shoes, and accessories, style
their hair in similar ways and hang out in the same places.