Acculturation

Acculturation is the exchange of cultural features that results when groups of individuals having different cultures come into continuous first hand contact; the original cultural patterns of either or both groups may be altered, but the groups remain distinct.^[1] (Kottak 2007)

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 minorities in response to their contact with the dominant majority.

Portrait of Native Americans from the Cherokee, Cheyenne, Choctaw, Comanche, Iroquois, and Muscogee tribes in European attire. Photos dates from 1868 to 1924.

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 as 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.