Answer These Acculturation Terms Flashcards

According to the traditional assimilation model, assimilation occurs after 3 generations. • 1^st: The first generation immigrant struggles to learn the new way of their new country and holds on to many aspects of their culture. • 2^nd: The 2nd generations immigrants attend public schools, learn English better than their parents, may move out of ethnically grouped neighborhoods and marry someone outside of their race. However, they will still be seen as outsiders and may consider themselves outsiders as well. • 3^rd: The third generation, grandchildren of immigrants will be the ones to move completely into the mainstream of American life. They may learn a few words of their grandparent’s language, know a few recipes, or proverbs, but will speak mostly English, and questions regarding their nationality will seldom arise.

Milton Gordon presented a more specific analysis of assimilation. • Gordon described 7 different sub processes of assimilation 1. Cultural assimilation(practices and traditions) 2. Structural assimilation (educational, occupational, residential, and recreational spheres of society) 3. Marital assimilation (acceptable partners, significant intermerrige) 4. Identificational or indentification assimilaiton (the group you identify with, a sense of identity linked to the core society) 5. Attitudinal or attitude-receptional assimilation(prejudice and stereotyping absent) 6. Behavioral or behaviour-receptional assimilation (intentional discrimination absent) 7. Civic assmiliation (political power, representation in politics, absence of value and power conflict) assimilation. • Gordon’s stages differ from Park’s because a group may assimilate completely without going through all stages, and they do not have a specific order • Both Park and Gordon agree however that assimilation is inevitable.

Behavioral assimilation/acculturation occurs when a newcomer absorbs the cultural norms, values, beliefs, and behavior patterns of the "host" society. This may also involve learning English and/or becoming an American citizen. Within this process, Asian Americans may choose to retain much of their traditional Asian culture, norms, and behaviors while still acquiring those of mainstream American society, or to discard his/her traditional forms of Asian culture entirely in favor of complete immersion and identification with mainstream American society.

The second major type of assimilation, structural or socioeconomic assimilation, refers to when Asian Americans enter and become integrated into the formal social, political, economic, and cultural institutions of the host country -- i.e., when they begin to participate as full members of American society. Alternatively, it can also refer to when they attain socioeconomic mobility and status (usually in the form of income, occupation, residential integration, etc.) equal to other members of mainstream American society.

The first is Anglo conformity, which is when the minority or immigrant is taught that the norms, values, and institutions of the majority group are superior and that they should adopt them in order to be accepted. This is symbolized as A+B+C=A. The second outcome can be the melting pot, a term that almost all Americans have heard about. That's when different racial/ethnic groups come together and out of this interaction comes a new culture that incorporates elements from all groups into one. This can be represented as A+B+C=D. The third possible outcome is cultural pluralism, which others have also called the "salad bowl." This is when the different racial/ethnic groups keep their unique cultural norms, traditions, and behaviors, while still sharing common national values, goals, and institutions A+B+C=A+B+C. Gordon concluded that up to this point in American society, Anglo conformity has best represented the history of assimilation in America.

Robert E. Park: believed in a long-term trend toward assimilation of racial and ethnic minorities in modern societies. Each migrating group will go through the Race Relations Cycle which has the following stages: Contact: through immigration, conquest, and so forth Competition: Accommodation: involves a forced adjustment by a migrating group to a new social situation Robert E. Park. According to Park, ethnic groups come in contact with each other on a regular basis, and when contact occurs, a "race relations cycle" takes place.

1. Contact: Migration (voluntary and involuntary) and exploration bring two different groups of people together.
2. Competition: After the initial contact, the two groups that have come together compete for power and resources. This is referred to as economic competition.
3. Accommodation: The subordinate group, which is usually the migrating group, adjusts to a new social situation. This stage is a critical component of the race relations cycle and often takes place rapidly.
4. Assimilation: It may take a long time for the subordinate and/or migrant group to finally reach this final stage.

Gordon's model has been criticized for neglecting power issues (different resources available to competing racial groups) and ignoring the fact that not all groups reach cultural assimilation before structural assimilation (example Mexican Americans were found to be less culturally assimilated than African Americans, yet were more assimilated structurally). Furthermore, Gordon believes that, despite the struggle for power and ongoing racial prejudice and discrimination, all groups will eventually reach civic assimilation. The opponents of assimilation argue that full assimilation will never be reached while power and conflict struggles continue

Most assimilation theories take as their examples of cultural adaptation white European groups migrating voluntarily to the United States, so they neglect non-European groups. They also expect that ethnic and racial conflict will disappear as various groups become fully assimilated into the core culture and society, but ethnic and racial conflicts persist. They don’t analyze sufficiently the historical background and development of a particular racial or ethnic group within a national or world context, and they tend to neglect the power imbalance and inequality in racial and ethnic relations.

the original customs and home country ways of European immigrants were mostly lost by the third generation, but this did not mean the decline of ethnicity. their central thesis (that "melting pot" assimilation does not happen)

the theory of assimilation proposed by Andrew Greeley in whch white immigrant groups share traits with the host group and retaine major nationality characteristics as well. A number of research studies have documented the persistence of distinctive white ethnic groups such as Italian Americans and Jewish Americans in U.S. cities. This perspective is an integration of assmiliation theory, melting-pot theory, and cultural pluralism theory that incorporates the ideas of partial assimilation, partial retention of ethnic culture, and the modification and creation of ethnic cultural elements in the same framework. Literally, ethnogenesis means “the creation of ethnic groups”. The main argument is that over time, immigrant groups will share more common characteristics with the host group, but they still, to varying degrees, recreate new cultural elements in response to the host social environment by incorporating their own culture and the host culture. Example: at the beginning the host group and the immigrant group may have some things in common. For instance, the Irish could speak English and some groups were Protestants. As a result of adaptation over generations, the common culture changes. The immigrant group becomes similar to the host group, and the host group also becomes somewhat similar to the immigrant group. However, the immigrant group still keeps some elements of its culture, modifies some of it, and creates some new cultural elements in response to the host society challenges. The result is a new ethnic group with a cultural system that is a combination of the common culture and its unique heritage mixed in the American melting pot.

primordial or essentialist theory: race and ethnicity is deeply rooted in the biological makeup of human beings, so genes are linked to racial and ethnic behaviour. Criticism: racial and ethnic relations are social rather than biological. Edna Bonacich points out that many racial and ethnic groups have mixed biological ancestry. Jewish Americans, for example, have a very mixed ancestry: as a group, they share no distinct biological characteristics. Biologically diverse Italian immigrants from different regions of Italy gained a sense of being Italian American in the United States. The bonds holding Jewish Americans together were not genetically based, but rather the result of real historical experiences as they settled in the United States.

Four main approaches that seek to explain various forms of ethnic and racial hostility:
Social psychological approaches
Primordialism
Normative theories
Power-conflict theories*

Focus on how prejudice and racism satisfy psychic needs of certain people
Example: Frustration-aggression theory  Explains prejudice and racism as forms of hostility that arise from people frustrated in efforts to achieve goals
Racial and ethnic groups become safe targets (i.e., scapegoats) of displaced aggression
Limitation: Does not specify circumstances that lead to aggression, or why some groups rather than others are chosen as scapegoats*

Suggests ethnic attachments reflect innate tendency of people to seek out and associate with their “own kind”
Example: Sociobiology  Prejudice and discrimination stem from our innate tendency to be nepotistic
Ethnic prejudice and racism are ways of maintaining social boundaries
Limitation: Cannot explain intragroup conflict or intergroup harmony

Focus on how prejudices are transmitted through socialization and social circumstances that compel discriminatory behaviour
Example: Socialization approach  Focuses on how we are taught ethnic and racial stereotypes , prejudices, and attitudes by families, peer groups, and mass media
Argue that prejudice and attitudes are learned through social interaction
Limitation: Unable to explain how prejudicial ideas, attitudes, and practices first arise*