Acculturation
What is acculturation?
- Acculturation is the process by which people adapt to a new and different culture to the one in which they have been born and raised (i.e. the opposite to enculturation)
- Acculturation occurs when an individual chooses or is forced (i.e. because of war, famine or economic need) to move to and live in another country/culture
- Acculturation involves an individual acclimatising to the dominant culture into which they have moved from their original culture
- e.g. a student born and raised in Inner London moves to Wales for university and has to learn the customs and way of life in Wales; a person who has moved from the UK to Brazil in South America will have to acclimatise to the customs, norms, systems and procedures of the new cultural environment in Brazil
- Acculturation can be a positive experience for a non-native, but it can also lead to acculturative stress (see the Revision Note on Acculturative Stress & Berry’s Model - Cultural Influences on Behaviour)
- The most successful and productive acculturative strategy is integration (see the Revision Note on Acculturative Stress & Berry’s Model - Cultural Influences on Individual Behaviour)
- Acculturation is a bi-directional process: the dominant culture affects the migrant and they in turn affect the dominant culture e.g. by introducing new language, foods, religion, art, music etc.
How does acculturation affect parenting?
- As acculturation is an acclimatisation process it affects and influences all aspects of a person’s life, for example the attitudes, beliefs and behaviours involved in parenting
- Parents generally try to raise their children using the best practices and traditions that they themselves have experienced and these are largely dependent on the culture in which they have been raised – which can counter those of the dominant culture
- One aspect of parenting that is affected by acculturation is the attitude of parents towards ethnic identity i.e. the ways in which people view themselves in terms of their culture
- Research tends to suggest that the children of first-generation parents (i.e. the first to move to the new country) are less traditional in their behaviours and attitudes than their parents which is probably due to the influence of the dominant culture into which they have been born
- It may be difficult for first-generation non-native parents to reconcile the fact that their children may not agree with or follow the traditions, beliefs and norms of their original culture
- e.g. because dressing, socialising and holding attitudes that are more in line with the dominant culture
Which research studies investigate acculturation and parenting?
- Inman et al. (2007) – investigated ethnic identity in first‐generation Indian parents and children in the USA
Inman et al. (2007) is available as a separate Key Study – just navigate the Cultural Influences on Individual Behaviour section of this topic to find it (Two Key Studies of Enculturation & Acculturation)
Examiner Tip
Be VERY CAREFUL not to confuse ACCULTURATION with ENCULTURATION as the two topics are very different! Students often make this mistake and consequently score 0 in the exam
Worked example
SAQ (SHORT ANSWER QUESTION) - 9 marks
Describe one study of acculturation. [9]
The question requires you to give a detailed account of an acculturation study, using examples. It is important to be concise, clear, and coherent when describing all aspects of the study, particularly the procedure. Here is an exemplar paragraph:
Inman et al. (2007) collected qualitative data using semi-structured interviews which are structured using some pre-prepared questions, but which also have flexibility built in. They analysed the interview transcripts using inductive content analysis in which emergent themes are categorised and analysed. The participants were 16 first-generation Indian Hindu parents who had emigrated to the USA in the late 1960s/70s when they were over 20 years old. They were selected through a combination of purposive and snowball sampling, and all participants were fluent in English. Prior to the interview, participants were asked if they were ‘very Indian, somewhat Indian, bicultural, somewhat American or very American.’ They were asked to then elaborate on this in the interview.
