UNIT 8, CHAPTER 8

CATALOGUE OF ACCULTURATION CONSTRUCTS: DESCRIPTIONS OF 126 TAXONOMIES, 1918-2003

Floyd W. Rudmin
Psychology Department
University of Tromso
Norway N-9037
Norway email: frudmin@psyk.uit.no 
Norway phone: (+47) 77 64 59 53

Canada email: frudmin@cgocable.net
Canada phone: (613) 549-6538

ABSTRACT

Acculturation refers to the processes by which individuals, families, communities, and societies react to inter-cultural contact. Advances in communication and transportation technologies, and increasing migration pressures due to demographic, economic, environmental, human rights, and security disparities, make acculturation one of the most important topics for applied research in cross-cultural psychology. However, progress in acculturation research has been frustrated by our inabilities to pit theories against each other in meaningful ways, to summarize results by meta-analytic methods, or to improve constructs and scales all because we have been unaware of the interdisciplinary breadth of acculturation research and its historical depth. This annotated bibliography of acculturation taxonomies presents an accessible historical foundation to the literature on acculturation. The most ancient psychological discussion of acculturation appears to be that of Plato in 348 BC. In the early 19th century, DeTocqueville speculated about acculturation processes in Europe and America. The word "acculturation" was first used in 1880, and by 1900 scholars were already writing histories of acculturation theory. G. Stanley Hall was the first psychologist to write about acculturation, and Thomas and Znaniecki presented the first full psychological theory in 1918. Since then, more than 100 different taxonomies of acculturation have been published, most of them cited and summarized here.

INTRODUCTION

When peoples of different cultures interact and intermix, they have some probability of adopting each others products, technologies, behaviors, languages, beliefs, values and social institutions.

"Acculturation comprehends 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" (Redfield, Linton & Herskovits, 1936, p.149). 

As shown in Table 1, studies of acculturation have increased dramatically in the last two decades, possibly because more and more minority individuals are entering research careers.  Dissertation Abstracts International indexes all disciplines, and PsycINFO indexes psychology, including dissertations, so these two tabulations overlap.

Table1. Number of studies of "acculturation"

Although most acculturation research is relatively recent, the topic has a long history going back at least to Plato.  He argued that acculturation should be minimized but not to the extent of cultural isolation:

"The intercourse of cities with one another is apt to create a confusion of manners; strangers are always suggesting novelties to strangers. When states are well governed by good laws, the mixture causes the greatest possible injury; but seeing that most cities are the reverse of well-ordered, the confusion which arises in them from the reception of strangers, and from the citizens themselves rushing off into other cities, when any one either young or old desires to travel anywhere abroad at whatever time, is of no consequence. On the other hand, the refusal of states to receive others, and for their own citizens never to go to other places, is an utter impossibility, and to the rest of the world is likely to appear ruthless and uncivilized; it is a practise adopted by people who use harsh words, such as xenelasia or banishment of strangers, and who have harsh and morose ways" (Plato, 348BC/1892, pp. 338-339).

Plato recommended that only citizens over age 40 be allowed to travel to foreign lands, and then in the company of countrymen, so that there would be less likelihood of learning bad foreign ways.  He also recommended that foreign visitors be restricted to the port, outside the walls of the city, so that cultural contamination might be minimized.

Despite the ancient origins of theorizing about acculturation, it did not become a topic of research until the 19th century.  The first focus was on processes by which cultures merge with one another in order to make a homogeneous population suitable to the needs of a nation state.  For example, DeTocqueville's 1835 study of American political culture argued:

"If this tendency to assimilation brings foreign nations closer to each other, it must a fortiori prevent the descendants of the same people from becoming aliens to each other. The time will therefore come when one hundred and fifty millions of men will be living in North America, equal in condition, the progeny of one race, owing their origin to the same cause, and preserving the same civilization, the same language, the same religion, the same habits, the same manners, and imbued with the same opinions, propagated under the same forms. The rest is uncertain, but this is certain; and it is a fact new to the world - a fact fraught with such portentous consequences as to baffle the efforts even of the imagination" (DeTocqueville, 1835/1945, p. 452).

In 1901, Sarah Simons published a five-part review of 19th century acculturation research, most of it by European sociologists.  They had used evidence from history to theorize about two-way processes of "reciprocal accommodation" that caused cultural merger in multicultural empires and modern nation states.  In the German literature, this was called "Amalgamirungsprozess" [amalgamation processes], but in English, it was called "assimilation."

"It may, perhaps, be defined as that process of adjustment or accommodation which occurs between the members of two different races, if their contact is prolonged and if the necessary psychic conditions are present.  The result is group-homogeneity to a greater or less degree. Figuratively speaking, it is the process by which the aggregation of peoples is changed from a mere mechanical mixture into a chemical compound" (Simons, 1901, part I, pp. 791-792)

Another metaphor of assimilation was "cross-fertilization of cultures," which was said to be the cause of progress in human development.  For further history of 19th century acculturation theory, see Abramson (1980).

The first known use of the word "acculturation" is in J.W. Powell's 1880 report from the Bureau of American Ethnography on changes in Native American languages (Oxford Dictionary, 1989).  In 1883, Powell explained that "acculturation" refers to the psychological changes induced by cross-cultural imitation.  In 1898, W. J. McGee, a self-educated anthropologist also at the Bureau of American Ethnology, defined "acculturation" to be the processes of exchange and mutual improvement by which societies advance from savagery, to barbarism, to civilization, to enlightenment.  McGee (1898, p. 243) argued that "Human development is essentially social, and may be measured by the degree in which devices and ideas are interchanged and fertilized in the process of transfer, i.e., by the degree of acculturation."  Unlike Simons' concept of assimilation, acculturation can occur between antagonistic societies.  Other acculturation theorists would similarly argue that positive intercultural attitudes are not necessary for acculturation (e.g., Powell, 1900; Thurnwald, 1932; Devereux & Lobe, 1943).  McGee seems also to be the first to define different types of acculturation.  Martial acculturation is the imitation of weapons and religious symbols.  Marital acculturation is semi-antagonistic mating between groups.  Commercial acculturation is the exchange of goods.  Educational acculturation refers to the exchange of ideas and technologies of production.

Purpose

Subsequently, scholars from sociology, psychology, anthropology, political science, linguistics and other social science disciplines have proposed taxonomies of different types of acculturation.  The purpose of the present report is to catalogue such taxonomies.  The intention here is to briefly describe the constructs that underlie theories about different kinds of acculturation, without adding critical or comparative commentary or making inferences about the constructs.  Please note that this is NOT intended to be a review of empirical results.  Empirical aspects of studies are discussed only when constructs have been discovered and defined by empirical methods, for example, factor analysis, or when the operationalization of constructs helps to explain their definitions.

The pedagogic utility of this kind of descriptive catalog is first of all as an annotated bibliography on acculturation.  For students of acculturation, it is instructive to see the very high degree to which the history of acculturation research has involved minority heritage doctoral students researching their own groups acculturative situation.  It is also important for students to note that empirical studies must be driven by theory, but that our theory suffers because our base knowledge is restricted by our ideologies, by the national cultures in which we work, by our disciplinary boundaries, and by our contemporary intellectual fashions.  This history of acculturation theory and constructs shows some of the range of possibilities that we might normally not consider, for example, that people can acculturate to cultures they dislike, or that biculturalism is distressing, or that marginality is a positive condition with benefits, or that genocide is an acculturation strategy.

It is important for students to realize that the concepts, constructs, and theories that appear in their textbooks, or that they use in their research, all arise through a process of intellectual evolution, with continual change over time.  Every scholar who has multiple studies of acculturation also has multiple and changing taxonomies of acculturation concepts and constructs.  The same word can have different meanings.  For example, all modes of acculturation can be conceived as some form of marginality: Assimilationists are marginal to the minority group they left and to the majority group if it does not admit visible minorities.  Assimilationists may also be opportunistic cultural chameleons who do not adhere to any culture.  Separationists are marginal to the mainstream society.  Integrationists are bicultural and thus marginal to either or both society if exclusivity is important for either culture, for example, Christianity, Judaism, and Islam would exclude or marginalize persons professing or practicing two religions.  Marginalizationists are of course marginalized from the two cultural communities, but if the cosmopolitan, acultural marginalizationists are the majority in a city or a university, they might marginalize the other three categories of people as ethnocentric and unmodern.  All of this complicates and sometimes confounds literature reviews and meta-analyses.  The history of a concept or construct is often necessary to understand its meaning, or the motivations for its use, or the ideology that underlies it.  For further examples of how history helps us to see faults in acculturation research and to suggest ways to improvement, see Rudmin's (2003) critical history of acculturation.

These taxonomies have been ordered chronologically in Table 2.  It has seemed best to use the fourfold  framework promoted by John Berry to organize the acculturation constructs into four generic types, depending on the relative importance of the first-culture (F) and the contact culture (C).  These four generic types have been symbolized as:  1)  -F+C,  2)  +F-C,  3)  +F+C, and 4)  -F-C,  meaning 1) that the contact culture is favored, or 2) that the first-culture is favored, or 3) that both are favored, or 4) that both are disfavored.  As will become clear in the descriptions of each of the taxonomies listed in Table 2, there is immense latitude within these generic types, depending on aspects of culture focused upon and whose perspective is considered.  Most taxonomies describe the acculturating minority's perspective, but some describe the dominant society's attitudes or policies towards the minority.  These four generic categories of constructs do not well encompass some of the taxonomies, especially when constructs have been discovered and defined empirically rather than by apriori theory, for example, in Padilla's 1980 study.  My own most recent taxonomy of 16 types of acculturation was developed from a critique of the logic of the four generic categories used here, and those 16 types necessarily do not well fit these categories.  

As an online manuscript, corrections and expansions are to be expected.  I welcome readers critical comments about accuracy and readability.  I also welcome recommendations of taxonomies that I have missed.  I am aware that I probably have failed to find and include taxonomies developed and published in languages that are not English, or that come from other social science fields, for example, history, geography, law, women's studies, Black studies, culture studies, etc.

1918  Thomas & Znaniecki

According to Persons (1987, p. 45), the dominant scholar on ethnic relations at the University of Chicago was sociologist William Thomas, who partnered with Polish sociologist, Florian Znaniecki, to empirically study Polish immigrants.  Theirs is the first psychological theory of acculturation and is still worth reading.  They adopted Herbart's psychology to argue that culture is comprised of shared apperceptive processes, for example, habits, associations, attitudes, and beliefs, that are called schemes because they have utility in a stable social environment.  Personality types derive from individual differences in the instincts of fear and curiosity:  Bohemians are high in curiosity, low in fear, Philistines are low in curiosity, high in fear, and creative personalities have a balance of curiosity and fear.  In terms of acculturation, the Bohemian [-F+C] is environmentally reactive and highly adaptive, but "can do nothing but adopt some other ready system instead of the rejected one" (p. 1903).  Bohemians are well-suited to the dissociated state of modern, urban, efficiency oriented society, where "a multiplicity of disconnected, often radically conflicting characters can co-exist in what seems to be one personality" (p. 1888).  In contrast, the Philistine [+F-C] "is always a conformist, usually accepting social tradition in it most stable elements" (p. 1854).  The individual who is creative [+F+C] modifies existing cultural schema in order "to widen the control of his environment, to adapt to his purposes a continually increasing sphere of social reality" (p. 1856).

1920  Ross

American sociologist Edward Ross used historical examples and biological metaphors to theorize how "diverse ethnic elements gradually adapt themselves to one another" (p. 224).  Accommodation [-F+C] means mutual adaptation of two cultures in parity, or the conversion of the weaker culture by imitation of the superior culture.  Toleration [+F-C] describes intermingled ethnic traditions having mutual contempt and aversion, such that "toleration is furthered by regulated avoidance" (p. 227).  Compromise [+F+C] arises from a necessity for cooperation and the need to abide together in civic and economic harmony, such that the state allows "complete freedom in all cultural matters" (p. 229).  Compromise involves the distress of giving up what one feels entitled to and thus should be minimized to the extent possible.

1920  Berkson

Writing from Columbia University's Teacher's College, Isaac Berkson related acculturation to American liberal democracy.  Since humans are self-conscious, they seek self-determination, which is "the quintessence of democracy" (p.27).  Self-determination includes choosing one's own social community.  Berkson evaluated competing theories of acculturation in light of liberalism. Americanization [-F+C] is an ethnocentric misconception of America as an Anglo-Saxon culture rather than a liberal democracy.  Although Americanization may seem to be quick and coercive assimilation, it is inherently anti-American, counter-productive, and a cause of criminality.  The theory of America as a federation of nationalities [+F-C] "rests on the assumption that the ethnic quality of an individual determines absolutely and inevitably what his nature is to be" (p. 79), and thus is racist, deterministic, and an affront to freedom.  The theory of melting pot [+F+C] mistakenly conceives that American culture is not liberal democracy but the amalgamating of immigrant cultures, resulting in the "disappearance of divergent ethnic strains and cultures within the unity of American life" (p. 73).  Berkson favored the theory of community [+F+C] which conceives that cultural groups can live interspersed with others, can "engage in commerce, in political and social life . . . fulfill whatever responsibilities citizenship implies even by those who have no other loyalty than to the American ethnos" (p. 102), but can also maintain their cultural heritage by educational in the family and the school.  Such "double allegiance . . . is greater than twice a single allegiance" since "knowledge of an additional language and culture" makes a person richer and prevents ethnocentrism which is a bane to liberalism.

1923  Bartlett

British psychologist Frederic Bartlett (1923/1970) theorized on the psychology of contact between peoples.  Drawing on anthropological reports and accounts of colonialism, he argued that the outcome depended on the pugnacity of the dominant culture, on the submissiveness of the minor culture, and on their degree of cultural similarity.  Replacement [-F+C] of the minority culture will happen "if dominance on the one side is answered by extreme submissiveness on the other" (p. 145).  If the two cultures have few institutions, customs, and habits in common, then the minority accepts incongruous aspects of culture resulting in "compromise formations" which cause "pathological developments of social life" and the possibility of "violent social reversions" (pp. 152, 148).  Partial replacement [+F-C] will occur if the dominant culture is not pugnacious and the minority culture is not submissive, and if the two cultures have little in common.  The minority culture in this condition will selectively adopt and adapt aspects of the dominant culture according principles of cultural conservativism.  "The result is a perplexing but at the same time a vitalizing, complexity of culture" (Bartlett, 1923/1970, p. 146).  Blending [+F+C] will result if the attitudes of the two cultures are sufficiently positive to allow a sense of comradeship to arise and if there is enough cultural similarity that emotional meanings can be transferred to new modifications of culture.

1924  Miller

American sociologist Herbert Miller, like Berkson, focused his acculturation typology on freedom.  Immigrants come to America to escape cultural oppression.  Oppression psychosis entails frustration, abnormal subjectivity, hyperaesthetic sense of self, suspiciousness, and group solidarity.  Hence, the melting-pot [-F+C] policy, "which aims to make a uniform society" (p. 38), continues the pre-existing oppression psychosis the immigrants bring with them.  Segregation [+F-C] and other forms of ethnic solidarity are reactions to such oppression.  Inter-ethnic conflict "can only be solved by the paradoxical method of indirection" (p. 38) [+F+C], which entails teaching heritage languages in schools, encouraging ethnic newspapers, and helping resolve cultural oppression abroad.  Ethnic heritage maintenance is thus a means of indirect assimilation: "Meet the immigrant more than half way with the things he wants and he will meet you two-thirds of the way to accept the things you want him to take" (p. 180).

1928  Park

Chicago sociologist Robert Park (1928) proposed a theory of marginality that described four types of acculturation.  He argued that cultures are marked by geography and by racial features.  Acculturation begins as a transition [-F-C] state of marginality, characterized by liberation or emancipation from the confines of culture, by enlightenment, objectivity, and less prejudice, but also characterized by spiritual distress, inner turmoil, intense self-consciousness, embitteredness and disillusionment.  The racially indistinct migrant has the possibility of reintegration [-F+C] into the new secularized social order.  For the racially marked migrant, segregated symbiosis [+F-C] is likely, with each cultural community more or less complete and without interbreeding, but engaged in mutual commerce.  However, racially marked migrants who leave the segregated ghetto, or people of mixed blood, stay in a permanent state of cultural hybrid [+F+C], "living and sharing intimately in the cultural life and traditions of two distinct peoples, never quite willing to break . . . with his past and his traditions, and not quite accepted. . . on the margins of two cultures and two societies, which never completely interpenetrated and fused" (p. 892).

1932  Thurnwald

Yale anthropologist Richard Thurnwald (1932) cited historical and anthropological examples to argue that societies tend to have alternating rhythms of negative and positive attitudes towards foreign cultures.  Within these waves, acculturation entails decision processes about a) which aspects of a foreign culture to adopt, b) which aspects to actively reject, c) which aspects of one's own culture to eliminate, and d) how to transform the foreign adaptations to fit with core cultural norms and practices.  Thus, there are four acculturation stages: 1) withdrawal [+F-C] from contact into relative isolation, "more or less apart from the larger society" (p. 559); 2) imitation [-F+C] or "almost identification with the new or strange" (p. 563); 3) Völkertod [-F-C], the "passing of a people" or "losing of ethnic personality" (p. 563); and 4) recovery [+F+C] which is "an assertion of the cultural individuality" (p. 564) but including aspects of modernity that make the culture viable and compatible with the contemporary world.

1934  Hoffman

Moses Hoffmans' 1934 philosophy dissertation at Columbia University on the bilingual environment of immigrants was probably the first psychometric study of acculturation.  A literature review on the apparent low IQ of bilingual immigrant children suggested the need to measure "the amount of English and the amount of foreign language" (p. 11) in the children's environments.  Hoffman developed two equivalent versions of a 24-item questionnaire on language use, meeting rigorous psychometric standards.  The three types of language acculturation measured by this scale were, at one extreme, of no foreign language [-F+C], at the other extreme, only foreign language [+F-C], and in between, proportionate bilingualism [+F+C] as a ratio of English to foreign language.  The questionnaire was completed by 52 foreign-born children and 547 native children of foreign-born parents.  Hoffman found that bilingualism did not correlate with low intelligence as most of his contemporaries had argued.

1934  Brown

Anthropologist W. O. Brown (1934) argued that cultural contact goes through a series of stages.  First there is symbiotic trading, followed by conflict and temporary accommodation.  If the two cultural groups are equal in power, there will be a struggle for superior status and mobilization of ideological resources, including attitudes and beliefs.  There are three long-term solutions to this kind of conflict.  Isolation [+F-C] of the weaker culture from the dominant is possible, but this may not be to the economic interests of the stronger group, and if imposed may anger the weaker group.  Subordination [+F+C] of the weaker group is possible, such that they maintain identity and serve the roles allotted to them by the stronger group.  Fusion assimilation [-F-C] entails the cultural and biological blending of the two cultures.

1936  Redfield, Linton & Herskovits

In 1936, a committee of the US Social Science Research Council defined acculturation as quoted in this paper's opening paragraph (Redfield et al., 1936).  Section IV of their report was entitled, "Psychological mechanisms of selection and integration of traits under acculturation" and emphasized that whether cultural traits are accepted or rejected depends on the attitudes of the receiving group towards the donor group.  The report argued that the outcome of acculturative contact is either 1) acceptance [-F+C] of the contact culture's traits and eventual assimilation into it; or 2) reaction [+F-C] describes contra-acculturative movements that arise as compensation against presumed or imposed the inferiority or against loss of prestige; or 3) adaptation [+F+C] by fusing the two cultures into an "harmonious, meaningful whole" (p. 152) or by switching back and forth between F and C as the situation requires.  "Psychic conflict" (p. 152) results from attempts to reconcile different social behaviors and norms, and hence should be greatest for individuals engaged in bicultural adaptation and should be least for those who reject acculturative change.

1939  Child

Irvin Child's 1939 psychology dissertation at Yale University was published in 1943 and reprinted in 1970.  His acculturation theory was based on Lewin's double approach-avoidance paradigm, which presumes that conditions of psychological conflict and frustration persists until a preference decision is made for one option over the other.  Using this theory and interview data from 2nd generation Italian-Americans, Child described four types of acculturation.  The rebel reaction [-F+C] entails abandonment of the first-culture and assimilation into the dominant group.  In-group reaction [+F-C] entails minimizing affiliation with the dominant society so that loyalty and identity with the first-culture are not diminished. Double response [+F+C] entails alternation between cultures depending on the situation.  An apathetic reaction [-F-C] entails escape "by a de-emotionalizing of symbols and facts relating to nationality, by an attempt to deny the personal significance of the societal and cultural conditions to which the person is responding" (Child, 1943/1970, p. 72).  When such escape is not possible, a compromise reaction is made that is part-way between the two cultures.  Child argued that the double response and the apathetic reaction do not resolve the cultural conflicts or end the frustrations.  The double response is the least satisfactory and was not evident in any of his acculturating subjects.

1940  Srole

Leo Srole's (1940) anthropology dissertation at the University of Chicago was a case study of a multi-ethnic US city. He defined four types of associations that were differentiated "according to the type of symbolism which is the association's ideal focus" (p. 72). American-national-associations [-F+C] have almost exclusively patriotic symbols and rarely have members who were foreign-born.  Ancestral-national associations [+F-C] are focused on achieving an independent national homeland abroad. Bi-national associations [+F+C] is "characterized by the fact that it is oriented to symbols both of the American society and the group's ancestral society" in order to "validate its existence and that of its group in American society by symbolically suggesting that the group has had a share in making American development possible" (p. 73). Sacred associations [-F-C] "are devoid of any national symbolism" (p. 74) because they are related solely to the Roman Catholic Church which was mutually shared by the Irish, French-Canadian, and Polish communities.

1940  Slotkin

James Slotkin's1940 sociology dissertation at the University of Chicago on Jewish intermarriage was summarized in his 1942 report.  Using interview data from 87 individuals and descriptive data from another 96 obtained from social service files, Slotkin found that respondents clustered into eight acculturation types.  Rebellious [-F+C] people "question the validity of their own customs and perhaps rebel against them" (p. 37) and find the customs of other groups attractive and preferable.  Marginal [-F+C] people identify with the dominant group, have adopted its culture, but are not accepted by it and therefore intermarry as a means to achieve acceptance.  Promiscuous [+F+C] people retain identity with their minority group, but want to engage in casual sexual relations free from cultural obligations.  Similarly, adventurous [+F+C] people retain identity with their minority group, but have positive stereotypes of out-group people and thus seek relations with them. Detached [+F+C] people also retain minority group membership, but are physically isolated from their ethnic group and by default must find romantic relationships within other cultural groups.  Acculturated [+F+C] people "take over the standards of the dominant group to such an extent that they look down upon their own traits . . . even though they still identify themselves with the subordinate group" (p. 38).  Unorganized [-F-C] people come from the urban, criminal underworld and do not conform to the social norms of the larger society nor retain any in-group sentiments.  Emancipated [-F-C] people have lost the endogamous attitude and may have lost all cultural awareness, such that they treat people as individuals rather than as members of cultural groups.  The emancipated comprised almost half of those who intermarried.

1943  Devereux & Loeb

Psychologist George Devereux and anthropologist Edwin Loeb (1943) described ways in which cultures in contact adjust themselves in order not to become similar.  Beginning with Freud's "the narcissism of small differences" Horney's "uniqueness of the Self", Devereux and Loeb (1943) theorized and illustrated three kinds of antagonistic acculturation.  Defensive isolation [+F-C] is the form of acculturative resistence that employs the suspension of social contact and of foreign cultural items.  The adoption of new means [+F+C] entails using the foreign culture's technology, but for different ends.  Thus, although there may be a surface appearance of biculturalism, in fact, the core cultural values and goals have not diminished, and maybe have been enhanced.  Dissociative negative acculturation [-F-C] entails cultural change for the purpose of enhancing differences with the contact culture, for example, by regressing to practices prior to cultural contact, or by creating different but not negative forms of behavior, or by creating customs that are contrary to those of the contact culture.  

1945  Senter

Donovan Senter's 1945 anthropological study of Mexican acculturation in the USA argued that there are three possible types of acculturative adjustment.  First, migrants may "attempt quick acceptance [-F+C] of the new culture, the situation leading to eventual assimilation, although the path would be made rough by prejudice" (p. 33).  Or, "they may attempt to maintain [+F-C] their original culture" (p. 33).  Or, "they may develop [-F-C] something foreign to both their ancestral culture and that of the present majority group" (p. 33). This last option is not so much creative as it is rebellious, non-adaptive, and anarchistic.

1945  Wirth

Chicago sociologist Louis Wirth (1945) conceived that a minority group has four possible group goals.  Assimilation [-F+C] entails the complete loss of the minority group's identity as it is absorbed into the dominant group.  For assimilation to be complete, the dominant group must accept these new members, including intermarriage.  Secession [+F-C] includes separatist and independence movements, that seek a political divide and protection of the minority culture through it own political control.  Militancy [+F-C] also presumes a goal of political change, not to separate from the majority, but to become the dominant force controlling the majority.  Wirth gives the example of the Sudeten German minority in Czechoslovakia taking control of the whole country.  Pluralism [+F+C] presumes that minority group identity and cultural practices will be tolerated within the larger society and preserved.

1947  Campisi

Paul Campisi's 1947 sociology dissertation at the University of Chicago developed psychometric measures of acculturation on two dimensions of change: "(1) the degree to which a person has incorporated certain aspects of American culture and (2) the degree to which that same person has retained certain aspects of his or her ancestor's non-American way of life" (p. 16).  Campisi described three types of acculturation outcomes.  Acculturation is successful [-F+C] if immigrants "(1) take on the hopes and aspirations and customs of the dominant group, and (2) get rid, forget, inhibit, repress, deny or suppress the hopes, aspirations and customs of his group" (p. 14).  Acculturation is minimal [+F-C] if the migrants can "be content with a minimum amount of acceptance of American ways, an amount which enables him to keep his menial job in the larger society and to withdraw after work to the security of his foreign cultural island" (p. 13).  Acculturation is dilettante [+F+C] if the migrants try to make "a selection of those interesting American ways which appeal to him and to reject all other ways which do not appeal to him" (p. 14).  However, Campisi argues that such biculturalism is not tenable given the coercive quality of American expectations.  For Campisi, marginality was not a separate type of acculturation, but the consequence of failure:

"The process is a highly dynamic and explosive one wherein some individuals falter and fail; wherein the resultant marginality ends in suicide or pathological personality manifestations; wherein some are constantly oppressed and frustrated by feelings of inadequacy and inferiority; wherein the coercion of the foreign culture is so strong in some as to make a blending of the new and the old an almost impossible undertaking" (Campisi, 1947, p. 2).

Campisi's six sub-scales of associations, language use, self-perception, food habits, desire to acculturate, and identification were used by Weinstock (1964) to study Hungarian refugees in the USA and by Gold (1967) to study Indians in Saskatchewan.

 1948  Lewin

Kurt Lewin included acculturation topics in his 1948 compilation of essays on resolving social conflicts.  His typology of acculturation arose from field theory and from his personal experiences during the Holocaust and afterwards as a refugee in an anti-Semitic America.  Negative chauvinism [-F+C] describes people who are ashamed of their minority group membership and who adopt the habits, appearances, and attitudes of the dominant group, to the degree that it allows.  Chauvinism [+F-C] entails a tendency to over-rate the central values, habits, ideas, and traditions of one's own culture vis-a-vis other cultures.  The bicultural situation of double loyalty [+F+C] is sociologically sound since it is possible to be loyal to many overlapping groups "without being thrown into a constant state of conflict and uncertainty" (p. 179).  Rather, it is the marginal man [-F-C] who is uncertain and in conflict, who is "regarded by the privileged majority as not belonging to them" but also "not really belonging to the underprivileged minority" (p. 179).  Lewin warned that "it may be difficult to determine in a given case" (p. 196) which acculturation category applies since subtle shifting of valences within a complex field cause the overall situation to change.

1949  Ichheiser

Gustav Ichheiser's 1949 phenomenological analyses of acculturation arose from his experiences as a Polish-Jewish social psychologist in the multicultural milieu of pre-War Vienna and as a war refugee in England and the USA (Rudmin, Trimpop, Kryl & Boski, 1987).  He argued that acculturation problems inevitably arise because cultural identity has two sources, one being the inner, enduring core personality, and the other being the internalization of social attributions and misattributions based on surface appearances (Boski & Rudmin, 1989). Assimilation by mimicry [-F+C] is the most stressful acculturation situation since one must inhibit or hide one's core cultural traits in order to appear to the dominant group to have their traits.  If the dominant culture conceives itself to be acultural, as does the USA, then assimilation becomes denial [-F-C] of cultural traits and denial of cultural differences:

"This solution --the history of the Jews proves it-- obviously does not work . . . first, because the existing differences do not disappear by the magical procedure of being denied but rather remain and sound through all the disguises, pretenses, and concealments. The majority feels, therefore, that the minority tries to solve the problem by a kind of deception . . . And, second, this solution does not work, because the mimicry has to be paid for at the very high psychological price of repressing and distorting real personality" (Ichheiser,1949, p. 41).

A less stressful alternative is to display one's cultural traits with no pretenses, but this risks being rejected [+F-C] by the dominant group because deliberately displayed cultural differences can be misattributed as dislike, defiance, or anti-democratic ethnocentrism.  There are many types of intermediate, partial, bicultural solutions, which Ichheiser called "pseudo-solutions" [+F+C] ,since misattributions about them are inevitable.

1949  Gordon

Albert Gordon (1949) described an acculturation typology in his account of the Minneapolis Jewish community.  Assimilation was labeled from the minority group's perspective as marginal [-F+C], meaning that Jews are marginal to their community if they considered their minority culture to be "a liability and a misfortune", something "entirely out of place in, and out of step with, the occidental way of life" (p. 304).  In contrast, some immigrants tried to perpetuate [+F-C] their minority religious and national cultures, and "resented and distrusted the American school system, which often weaned their children away from their cultural moorings" (p. 300).  Jews are called affirmative [+F+C] who sought a permanent bicultural condition, "to live as completely as possible in the larger community, while retaining their interest and concern for the welfare of the Jewish community" (p. 303).

1949  Bogardus

 The American social psychologist, Emory Bogardus, defined acculturation to be "a process of developing one cultural system out of two or more systems whose human representatives are in contact with each other" (Bogardus, 1949, p. 125).  Imposed [-F+C] acculturation "is found wherever the people of one culture try to suppress the culture patterns, for example, of immigrants and to impose their own patterns of behavior and of thought upon these immigrants" (pp. 125-126). This kind of acculturation was  typified by early Americanization movements as well as by policies in totalitarian states, but fails because one's culture is a vital aspect of inner personality.  Blind [+F+C] acculturation is the natural, undirected, unforced, casual kind of acculturation in which two or more societies live in a cultural mosaic for an extended period, freely borrowing and imitating in a hodgepodge, hit-or-miss manner.  Blind acculturation is historically most common, as is best typified by the multicultural ancestry of English culture and language.  Democratic [+F+C] acculturation arises as a result of policies to promote cultural pluralism, as typified by US acculturation policies after World War I.  Democratic acculturation is characterized by 1) "the representatives of each culture view all other cultures with respect and in terms of their history and their merits" (p. 127); 2) "No compulsion is exercised on anyone as a rule to accept cultural patterns different from his own" (p. 127); 3) "It includes the proposal to encourage an immigrant to develop his cultural traits fully and then to make culture contributions to the national life" (p. 127); 4) "Democratic acculturation keeps the immigrant's identity as a distinctive person in the community alive a long time, longer than in the case of blind acculturation, and very much longer than under imposed acculturation" (p. 128); 5) "Instead of making the immigrant ashamed of the customs of his homeland, democratic acculturation dignifies his role as a liaison person between cultures" (p. 129); and 6) "As an essential aspect of democratic acculturation, cultural pluralism deprecates those racial stereotypes which are derogatory" (p. 129).

1951  Voget

Fred Voget's (1951; 1952/1967; 1956) anthropological studies of North American Native Peoples concluded that there are three kinds of acculturation, depending on ethnic identification, social participation, and cultural integration.  The Euroamerican marginals [-F+C] have "full identification with the dominant society and culture" and "have cut themselves off completely from social contracts" with the Native community (Voget, 1951, p. 221).  Because they suffer racial discrimination from the dominant society and are not accepted, they end up marginal to both communities: "Their marginality derived in part from their own activities and from local discrimination by whites familiar with their ancestry" (Voget, 1951, p. 221).  The acculturative group classified as native [+F-C] includes "those individuals whose basic orientation was in terms of the unmodified aboriginal past" (p. 221). Those classified as native-modified or Euroamerican-modified [+F+C] participate in the dominant society, in either a limited or more extensive fashion, but maintain self-identity with their first-culture.  All processes of acculturation entail conflict on some issues (Voget, 1952/1967).

1951  Berry

Brewton Berry's (1951/1965) sociology textbook on Race and Ethnic Relations has full chapters on possible acculturative relationships between groups in contact, and illustrates each with historic examples.  The most commonly considered and studied acculturative outcome is assimilation [-F+C].  However, annihilation [-F+C] by disease or genocide, or expulsion [-F+C] are also acculturative final solutions that are rarely considered as possibilities that deserve study if they are to be prevented.  Geographic segregation [+F-C], whether voluntary or involuntary, separates the two cultures and minimizes acculturative pressures.  One form of biculturalism is called pluralism [+F+C], meaning that cultural minorities have the freedom to live their lives according to their own cultural norms, but participate in the economic and civic society.  Pluralism as it becomes geographically structured, can tend towards segregation.  Another form of biculturalism is stratification [+F+C] in which the minority retain their identity, but are subordinated and restricted in their roles and opportunities.  While the cultural and biological fusion of two cultural groups is sometimes considered a form of assimilation, amalgamation [-F-C] most often results in mixed blooded individuals who are excluded by, and considered marginal to, both cultural groups.

1952  Spindler & Goldschmidt

Sociologists George Spindler and Walter Goldschmidt's (1952) Rorschach study of the Menomini native community statistically distinguished clusters of people in a two-dimensional space defined by how much they had internalized European values and how much they knew and practiced traditional native ways (Spindler & Spindler, 1958).  Low-status and elite acculturated [-F+C] individuals lived in frame-houses, earned wages, and knew little Menomini lore, witchcraft, or medicine.  The elite group also participated in the Catholic Church.  The native-oriented [+F-C] group seemed to "identify deeply with what remains of the old culture" ( p. 74), spoke Menomini at social gatherings, depended on subsistence hunting and fishing, and practiced traditional religion.  Those classified as transitional [+F+C] lived in frame-houses and earned wages like the acculturated, but were "clearly distinguishable in their knowledge of and belief in magic and medicines, their use of medical facilities, and their knowledge and use of the Menomini language" (p. 75).  Those classified as the peyote cult [-F-C] group were people "in transition for whom the stress of this adjustment was especially acute" (p. 75) and as a result had enjoined hallucinogenic practices from another Native culture.  Finally, it was hypothesized that the transitional and peyote cult groups "alienated as they are from the cultural symbols of their ethnic past and at the same time not having internalized the symbols which constitute the value system of Western society, will exhibit more symptoms of personality disorganization than members of groups closely identified with the symbols of either of these culture types" (p. 80).  This empirically defined typology was later replicated by Spindler and Spindler (1958).

1952  Zajonc

Robert Zajonc (1952) used Freudian theory and the frustration-aggression hypothesis to argue that there are inherent psychological processes that lead acculturating minority individuals to have aggressive and critical attitudes toward the dominant culture.  First, "that a stranger must conform to many norms of the host culture is perhaps self-evident if only to mention things like language, laws, taxes" ( p. 206).  Host culture conformity [-F+ C] entails the psychodynamics of superego control of behavior, but the stranger's superego was molded within a different cultural context.  Thus, efforts towards host culture conformity lead to the frustration [+F+C] of trying to fit first-culture psychodynamics to contact culture norms, threatening the deeper layers of the superego.  Strangers have exemption from fully conforming to host culture norms, and thus have the license to aggress against those norms.  This attitude of aggression [+F-C] leads to rationalization against conformity, and the stranger regresses to the original psychodynamics of first-culture behavior.  Zajonc (1952) presented empirical data from 40 foreign students to confirm this theorizing.

1952  Eaton

Sociologist Joseph Eaton (1952) described the acculturative process by which the Hutterite minority in the USA and Canada have avoided, or at least delayed, assimilation [-F+C].  Hutterites are a communal, agrarian anabaptist society that have faced persecution and refugee flight for over 300 years.  Pressure for cultural change comes from external opposition to their norms of common property, self-sufficiency, and communal living and from internal disaffection with their norm of austere simplicity and anti-materialism.  Controlled acculturation [+F-C] "is the process by which one culture accepts a practice from another culture, but integrates the new practice into its own existing value system [but] does not surrender its autonomy and separate identity" (Eaton, 1952, p. 338).  The goal of controlled acculturation is to maintain the viability of a culturally separate and distinct community, with intact values.  The loss of values by minority groups is the marginal [-F-C] condition that arises when a minority losses confidence in its culture but adheres to it for lack of an alternative.

1952a  Eisenstadt

Sociologist Shmuel Eisenstadt's (1952a) first psychometric study of Jewish settlement in Israel presented an acculturation typology based on identity and participation.  Immigrants classified as insecure transitional [-F+C] have "relatively strong aspirations towards entrance into the Gentile society and identification with it" as well as "a feeling that belongingness to a Jewish community usually constitutes an impediment for the achievement of status and successful mobility" which results "in a constant state of tension, status-anxiety, and insecurity" (Eisenstadt, 1952a, p. 237).  For immigrants classified as traditional [+F-C], their "cultural orientation towards the out-group is mainly negative" and the orientation towards the in-group one of "solidarity and cohesion" (p. 237).  Immigrants classified as secure transitional [+F+C] have "strong primary identification with the general community and secondary, associational identification with the Jewish community" (p. 237) such that "belonging to the Jewish community proved to be a source of a specifically strong feeling of security" (p. 238).  Survivors [-F-C] are immigrants from the Jewish communities of Europe that were destroyed during the Holocaust; they are immobilized by their experience in the death camps and have little self-consciousness as Jews.

1952b  Eisenstadt

Shmuel Eisenstadt developed a second acculturation typology of immigrant families in Israel, again with the focus on identification with the new country and with the family, and on participation in the society and compliance with its norms.  The interviews focused on what the immigrants criticized and complained about.  The isolated stable [+F-C] families have narrowly focused fields of interest related to family needs and have negative predispositions to change.  The isolated active [-F+C] families have also lost ties with their original groups during the war, but are more positive towards the new country and more active participants.  The cohesive ethnic group [+F+C] maintain their ethnic identification and institutions, but are positive towards the new country and its values and actively participate in its institutions.  The self-transforming cohesive ethnic group [-F+C] have a high degree of solidarity with their families but "very slight insistence on their specific cultural patterns" (Eisenstadt, 1952b, pp. 387-388).  This group is ideologically positive towards the new country and active participants in it.  "Owing to their high positive predisposition to change, their group cohesion, and mutual help . . . the conditions of absorption do not affect their personalities to a great extent, but mainly their group identifications" (p. 388).  The isolated apathetic [-F-C] families have "negative identification towards the new social structures and its social values" and "the scope of their social participation is minimal" (Eisenstadt, 1952b, p. 380).

1952  Lee

Robert Lee (1952), from the Pacific School of Religion, argued that assimilation of visible minorities in the USA is "well-nigh impossible if we are to understand assimilation to mean being transformed into a homogeneous part of the majority society's core culture" (p. 319).  He identified three groups of Chinese in America: The acculturated [-F+C] are second, third, and fourth generation Chinese who may reject their cultural heritage, cause family strain and social ostracism by the Chinese community.  The segregated [+F-C] are mostly new immigrants who have been completely cut off from the majority culture, live in segregated communities, and are content with traditional Chinese ways.  The Marginal Man [+F+C] describes second, third, and fourth generation Chinese who are thus Americanized, but who maintain a respectful attitude towards some aspects of Chinese culture, and thus have intimacy and good rapport with the majority and minority community.  Lee (1952, p. 320) argued that the minority needs to engaged in more activities in the mainstream culture, but also "there is an equally great need for members of the majority society to participate in the activities of minority groups, thus paving the way for freer association" such that "acculturation thereby is a dynamic two-way process of interaction."

1953  Beals

 Ralph Beals (1953) reviewed the history of anthropological research on acculturation, and concluded: "Virtually all discussions point out acceptance, syncretism, and reaction as being possible results of culture contact" (p. 636).  Acceptance [-F+C] of another culture's traits leads to assimilation, unless modified by other attitudes.  Reaction [+F-C] includes "a variety of contra-acculturative movements . . . with emphasis on the psychological factors" (p. 630) . Syncretism [+F+C] entails various kinds of bicultural blending. Reformulation [-F-C] in one form of syncretism that produces "entirely new cultural structures" (p. 636) which are not evident in either of the original contact cultures.

1953  Willey

Anthropologist Gordon Willey (1953) used archeological evidence to argue for a kind of acculturation he called "cultural colonialism".  An invading society first establishes a dominating, fortified colony [-F+C] that imposes its culture on the local inhabitants by brute force and hostility to the indigenous culture.  Some natives flee to refuge [+F-C] in the hinterland to maintain their culture and escape that of the intruder.  It is in the refuge that gradual acculturation takes place by self-directed processes of imitation and borrowing, until eventually a third culture arises which is a blend [+F+C] of the alien and native cultures.  This new culture eventually engulfs and consolidates the refuge and colony communities and thus ends cultural conflict.

1953  Taft

Australian social psychologist, Ronald Taft (1953; 1963), theorized that societies have three possible orientations towards the assimilation of immigrants.  Monism [-F+C] means that migrants should be culturally and socially assimilated into the dominant as quickly as possible.  Pluralism [+F-C] means that, "beyond the acceptance of supra-ordinate national values essential to the nation's existence there need be no agreement between immigrants and native citizens excepting that their cultural difference be mutually tolerated and preserved" (Taft, 1963, p. 279).  Interactionism [+F+C] is a process of communication and negotiation that arises from multiple frames of reference, with "the expectation that social interaction between immigrants and native citizens will lead to a gradual convergence of behavior and shared norms" (Taft, 1963, p. 279). Whereas monism is oppressive and pluralism is socially divisive, interactionism is respectful of each individual and each ethnic group and should facilitate social cooperativeness.

1953  Simpson & Yinger

Simpson and Yinger's (1953/1972) textbook on Racial and Cultural Minorities included a typology of minority acculturative orientations.  Assimilationist [-F+C] describes "a minority desiring absorption into the larger society and treatment simply as individuals . . . even in the face of majority opposition" (p. 14).  Secessionist [+F-C] describes "a minority that seeks both cultural and political independence . . . [when] they become discontented with cultural pluralism and antagonist to assimilation" (p. 15).  Militant [+F-C] describes a minority that seeks intercultural dominance and "the complete reversal of statuses" (p. 15).  Pluralist [+F+C] describes those who desire "peaceful existence side by side with the majority", which is a "precondition of a dynamic civilization, for it allows mutual exchange and stimulation" (p. 14). Ambivalent [-F-C] describes indecisiveness.

1954  Barnett, Broom, Siegel, Vogt & Watson

A Social Science Research Council committee comprised of Homer Barnett, Leonard Broom, Bernard Siegel, Evon Vogt & James Watson (1954) reviewed acculturation research and noted that interest in acculturation grows out of concern to preserve "memory cultures", defined by mental constructs more than by material or economic relations.  This explains "the predominate concern with the postcontact ethnography of 'receptor' cultures, while the 'donor' tacitly receives the status of an independent variable" (p. 973). They emphasized that it is not cultures that come into contact but individuals, and that individuals know only a portion of their culture.  Progressive adjustment [-F+C] includes bilateral cultural fusion and assimilation by processes that allow flexibility, reinterpretation, and "prerogative of integrating what they want and rejecting the rest" (p. 986). Reactive adaptation [+F-C] results from an attempt "to withdraw and to encyst native values" as a "response to threat when the pressure is less nearly overwhelming" (p. 987).  Stabilized pluralism [+F+C] is "arrested fusion or incomplete assimilation" resulting from "the failure of two cultures in contact completely to lose their autonomy" (p. 990).  Stabilization requires cultural institutions to "ameliorate the stresses of interethnic situations" and to "legitimatize the status system of the ethnic community in which one may expect to find transplanted important aspects of the stratification criteria of the dominant society" (p. 990).  Cultural disintegration [-F-C] results from mandatory elimination of minority traits and forced incorporation without allowance for selection, reinterpretation, or creativity.

1955  Spiro

Anthropologist Melford Spiro (1955) reviewed ethnographic research on minority group acculturation in the United States and concluded that positive attitudes towards the dominant society derive from a desire for social mobility, which entails identification with one's social class en lieu of one's ethnic group.  Assimilation [-F+C] is "the disappearance of group identity through nondifferential association and exogamy" (p. 1244).  Solidarity [+F-C] entails a rejection of social mobility and its divisive threat to the cultural survival of the minority group.  Acculturation [+F+C], like assimilation, is motivated by social mobility; however, minority group identification is retained, not by choice, but by the imposition of the majority group.  Deculturation [-F-C] describes the loss or rejection of first-culture norms, beliefs, or behaviors, but without any compensating replacement practices from the dominant society.  Spiro (1955, p. 1248) also found in the literature that all processes of acculturation "create severe problems of emotional adjustment".

1955  Antonovsky

Aaron Antonovsky's (1955; 1956) sociology dissertation identified six kinds of marginality, based on interviews of Jewish men in Connecticut.  By definition, the marginal situation is bicultural, yet there is usually a primary orientation towards the minority culture or toward the general society.  The primary orientation may be actively, ideologically endorsed, or passively, circumstantially endured.  The active general orientation [-F+C] describes "those who come as close to assimilation as possible without going so far as to hide intentionally or deny their Jewishness" (Antonovosky, 1956, p. 61).  The active Jewish orientation [+F-C] is marked by strong identity with Jewishness, separated from the Gentile society.  The passive Jewish orientation [+F-C] describes resigned minority membership, without an articulated ideology.  The dual orientation [+F+C] describes an "attitude of moderate and unproblematical . . . integration in a generally liberal society" (Antonovosky, 1956, p. 60).  The ambivalent orientation [-F-C] "seems to embody the classic psychological attributes of marginality [in that] both Jewish and non-Jewish is fundamentally unsatisfactory, conflicted" (Antonovosky, 1956, p. 60).  The passive general orientation [-F-C] describes those who are "indifferent to and drifting away from Jewish culture, but don't actually seek participation in non-Jewish life" (Antonovosky, 1956, p. 60).  Antonovosky (1956) concluded that marginality is necessarily a condition of being bicultural, but that only 14% of the sample exhibited such symptoms as instability, conflict, or uncertainty.

1956  Zubrzycki

Jerzy Zubrzycki's 1956 sociology dissertation on Polish immigrants in Britain described three types of acculturation.  Assimilation [-F+C] entails a predisposition to change behaviors, to learn those of the dominant society and to forego first-culture identity.  Accommodation [+F+C] also entails learning the behaviors of the dominant society, but with retention of first-culture identity: "This readiness to accept institutions of the host society combined with special efforts to maintain ethnic identity and separateness of the Polish community constitutes the essence of accommodation" (p. 175).  Conflict [-F-C] "is a state of personal disorganization on the part of the individual members of the immigrant group which alienates them from the host society and - in some cases - from the minority group itself" (p. 176).

1956  Cohen

Bernard Cohen's 1956 psychological study of Holocaust survivors argued that the two acculturation alternatives of assimilation [-F+C] and minority culture survival [+F-C] are both forms of ethnocentrism since they entail anti-democratic, authoritarian tendencies to reject other cultures.  Cohen's third alternative was indifference [-F-C] which entails no cultural assertiveness and entails a democratic acceptance of other people regardless of their culture.  His data confirmed that assimilationists and survivalists had higher scores on the Fascism Scale than did the indifferent group.

1957  Richardson

Alan Richardson's 1957 psychometric study of the assimilation of British migrants to Australia theorized that assimilation entails a progression from the minority person's isolation, to accommodation with the dominant society, to identification with the dominant society.  Identification [-F+C] is the final stage of assimilation, entailing behavioral accommodation to the dominant society and identification with it. Isolation [+F-C] describes an immigrant "who remains aloof from the resident population and who in every way tries to cultivate his traditional way of life" (p. 159).  Accommodation [+F+C] entails the immigrant conforming to the majority's behavior, dress, and other externalities, but not changing any deep lying attitudes.  Isolation, and accommodation to some degree, entail dissonance between the migrant and the larger society.

1957  Dohrenwend & Smith

Anthropologists Bruce Dohrenwend and Robert Smith (1957; 1962) theorized that acculturation entails two kinds of change, 1) away from traditional behavior, and 2) towards the contact culture.  The degree of acculturation depends on deviation from those important aspects of the culture that regulate cultural admission or exclusion.  Reorientation [-F+C] is the process by which the abandoned rules of the old culture "are altered by processes of internalization to bring them into line with those of the other culture" resulting in assimilation (Dohrenwend & Smith, 1962, p. 34).  Reaffirmation [+F-C] entails an "emphasis on preserving or reviving the rules of the cultural heritage" (p. 34), whether real or imagined.   Reconstitution [-F-C] is an emergent mode of acculturation that entails "the creation, by one group, of rules which existed in neither culture prior to contact" (p. 35).  Dohrenwend and Smith(1957; 1962) argued that there are several kinds of marginalization.  Failed reorientation is called partial reorientation [+F+C] and is marginalization because of deviance from important aspects of culture.  This describes the bicultural individual who "aspires to the economic goals of the other culture, for example, but strives to maintain his religious ties with his own group" (p. 36).  Failed reaffirmation is nativistic [+F-C] marginalization if the individual affirms weak aspects of the traditional culture that have been supplanted or are now tangential to the first-culture and to the contact culture.  Alienation [-F-C] is marginalization arising from the abandonment of aspects of the first-culture without any change towards adopting the contact culture, such that "the alienated individual is marginal to both groups" and "they may both 'disown' him" (p. 36).

1957  Horobin

Gordon Horobin's (1957) sociology study of Estonian refugees in England described several forms of acculturative adjustment.  Assimilation [-F+C] refers to complete, monistic assimilation "resulting in the complete elimination of difference" (p. 242). However, by this definition, most migrants do not assimilate.  Rather, Horobin argued, there are various forms of adjustment that may retard assimilation but are not dysfunctional.  Migrants who are backward looking [+F-C] have a nostalgic, romanticized focus on their past existence and dutifully maintain an ethnic community with shared goals of return.  Those who have mastered the language, intermarried, changed citizenship and in every way appear assimilated are in fact only Anglicized [+F+C] at a superficial level if cultural goals and ambitions have not been fulfilled or renounced.  Horobin used the word "rootless" [-F-C] to describe those who have renounced goals of return, who are dissatisfied and frustrated with their situation, but cannot change it.

1957  Taft

Ronald Taft (1957) proposed a comprehensive model of seven stages of social assimilation, from Stage 1 cultural learning to Stage 7 congruence.  Central to Taft's model is comparison of the migrant's internal, often imagined, complex of knowledge, attitudes, identity, etc., with the external reality of these in the migrant's own behavior and that of the social environment.  Stage 1 cultural learning, especially language acquisition is facilitated by contact which is enhanced by multiple reference groups and by presumption of knowledge even if incorrect.  Stage 2 involves attitudes towards individuals from, norms of, and identity with the new culture.  Contact does not predict positive attitudes but positive attitudes do predict contact.  Stage 3 involves attitudes towards first-culture individuals, norms, and identity.  Cultural norms conflict, and it will not be possible to have positive attitudes to all norms in both cultures, except by "compartmentalization" as a defence.  Stage 4 is focused on conformity to the new culture's norms.  Accommodation [+F+C] describes cultural conformity or role-playing, in Taft's words, "behavioral adaptation without any necessary ego-involvement" such as positive attitudes or self-identity (Taft, 1957, p. 148).  Stage 5 involves perceived and actual acceptance into the new culture.  Stage 6 involves group membership identity, as perceived by one's self, one's minority group, and the majority group.  A person is marginal [-F-C] if self-identity is not confirmed by the external group, and this may vary from one social context to another.  Stage 7 involves convergence of cultural norms.  "Since the term 'norms' implies 'built-in' (ego-involving) standards, which members of a group use in judging their own behavior and that of others, changes in a person's norms involve a fundamental change in his cognitive habits" which predicts incongruence, resistence, and lack of insight (Taft, 1957, p. 151).

1958  Glaser

Daniel Glaser (1958) presented a sociological theory that minority group acculturation is four locations on a progressive continuum of ethnic identity development.  Ethnic identity begins as an ethnocentric segregating [+F-C] of oneself into the minority group and rejecting traits of the dominant culture.  However, acculturative contact leads to bicultural competence, such that a person "favors a pluralistic society in which he can feel identified with several ethnic groups" (p. 34). A person in this state is called marginal [+F+C]:

"He is likely to be frequently conscious of the problem of deciding which identity is the most appropriate to promote for himself in a given time and place, and he may have guilt feelings and fears of discovery as a result of duplicity and inconsistency in identifying himself to others" (Glaser, 1958, p. 34).

Glaser's acculturative state of desegregating [-F-C] describes the person who is culturally autonomous and rejects all cultural identifications, as typified by Bohemian artists, religious cult groups, and cosmopolitan people generally.  The assimilated [-F+C] state is rare since it requires that the dominant culture be so thoroughly adopted that there is unawareness of culture, to the degree that other people's overt cultural affiliations are seen to be pathological.

1958  Bennett, Passin & McKnight

John Bennett, Herbert Passin and Robert McKnight (1958) used personality measures to define an acculturation typology for academic sojourners.  The idealist [-F+C] is rebellious against first-culture identification and values, prefers those of the contact culture, and is idealistic rather than instrumental in learning Western ways.  Nevertheless, idealists have difficulty learning American ways, and also experience alienation and loss of identity when returning home.  The constrictor [+F-C] conforms to first-culture identification and values, is generally inflexible, resistive to cultural change, introverted, and prefers superficial to deep learning.  The adjustor [-F-C] is biculturally adaptive, free from "fluctuating or conflicting ideals, cultural identification, or strong national loyalties. . . . and since his social habits permit him to engage in almost any activity without risk of emotional involvement, irreversible personal change is less of a reality" (p. 189).

1958  Thomas

      Cherokee anthropologist Robert K. Thomas (1958) described and theorized about the phenomena of "White Indians" and pan-Indianism. He argued that acculturation is on a continuum, beginning with the Conservative [+F-C] Indians, also called "Full-Bloods", who maintain traditional cultural lifestyles, language and religion. Some of them are marginalized.  Generalized Indians [+F+C] are those who maintain a pan-Indian identity, who have lost tribal aspects of their culture, but who also identify themselves as Americans.  They participate in the money economy, and may live in the Indian community or in a metropolitan area.  Behaviorally, they are similar to the Conservative Indians, but no longer use the native language.  Rural White Indians [-F-C] have inter-married with White families and in most ways have assimilated to White culture, but continue to live in the Indian community and to identify themselves as "Indian" but are not accepted by the rest of the community as such.  They may play important roles in the Church.  Middle class Indians [-F+C] have largely assimilated to mainstream American society and have Indian identity only to the extent of "noblisse oblige".  Psychologically, they are like Generalized Indians, but more stable, secure, and sophisticated.

1959  Borrie

Demographer Wilfred Borrie (1959), in his summary report on the 1956 UNESCO conference on immigration, noted that an effort had been made to focus on practical issues of economic and social adjustment, avoiding technical debates about the meanings of words.  However, because words such as "assimilation" and "integration" are used in national policy statements and laws, it is important to give attention to their meanings (plural).  Assimilation [-F+C] entails complete conformity by the immigrants to "the national way of life" and often has been accompanied by compulsion or by racist selection criteria to admit "assimilable types".  However, by about 1914, it was clear in the USA that immigrants did not assimilate, and ideas of cultural pluralism were articulated in the 1920s.  Integration [+F+C] "rests upon a belief in the importance of cultural differentiation within a framework of social unity" (p. 94).  An association of NGOs defined integration to be "a dynamic process in which values are enriched through mutual acquaintance, accommodation and understanding" (p. 96).  Such transculturation requires conformity in civil and economic matters, but laissez-faire policies in other domains.  The lack of controls required for integration allow the possibility of cultural isolation [+F-C] or segregation of minority groups, by social preferences rather than by legal mandate. 

1960  Rothman

Jack Rothman (1960; 1961) reviewed Kurt Lewin's writings for application to social work within the Jewish community.  Rothman emphasized Lewin's focus on minority group identification in order to avoid self-hatred: "Lewin based his theory solely on the psychological principle of the secure personality which results from relating well to the minority group" (Rothman, 1960, p. 88).  Under-assertion [-F+C] of minority identity can cause self-hatred as well as distress because an ill defined boundary between the in-group and the out-group is ill defined and because the majority "will be suspicious of the individual who is not identified with his in-group" (Rothman, 1960, p. 85).  Over-assertion [+F-C] of minority identity divides the minority community from the general society.  Lewin advocated a moderate position [+F+C] with a dynamic balance between in-group and out-group orientations.  Marginality [-F-C] describes "the non-identified individual who wishes desparately to leave the group but is held back by the rejection of the out-group" (Rothman, 1960, p. 89).

1960  Ausbel

Psychologist David Ausubel (1960a; b) used interviews and projective tests to study Maori acculturation in New Zealand.  Assimilative [-F+C] acculturation entails the gradual and insidious introduction of an attractive new culture, resulting in its complete acceptance.  Resistive [+F-C] acculturation entails physical withdrawal as well as "(a) a hard core of indigenous values, customs, and forms of social organization, (b) affectively charged repudiation of European values, and (c) such modification of the original culture as are conditioned or necessitated by apathy and demoralization" (Ausubel, 1960b, p. 221). Adaptive [+F+C] acculturation entails:

"perpetuating the existing culture on the basis of positive attractions, but not for emphasizing traditional cultural elements (and arbitrarily rejecting corresponding European elements) as ends in themselves apart from their inherent merit in particular circumstances. European cultural forms are voluntarily incorporated with more or less modification into the prevailing cultural pattern on the basis of their inherent compatibility . . . The structure of traditional social and economic institutions remains essentially intact without any demoralization or breakdown in leadership. Physical, social, and psychological withdrawal are unnecessary for the preservation of traditional social structure." (Ausubel, 1960b, p. 221).

Disintegration [-F-C] follows when resistive acculturation fails, and in describing this, Ausubel (1960a, p. 617; 1960b, p. 223;) was among the first to use the expression "acculturative stress".  

1961  Herman

Simon Herman (1961) used psychometric data to develop a progression of stages in linguistic acculturation depending on the potency of the personal need to use first-language and on the potency of the background culture of the majority. Upon arrival in a new country, immigrants first engage in over-conformity [-F+C] because they are anxious to be accepted.  Then comes a period of vacillation and frustration [-F-C] in which neither language has a predominant force and awareness of communicative incompetence causes frustration.  At some point, the need to use the expressive power of the first-language causes a crisis involving retreat and withdrawal [+F-C].  Eventually a stage of adjustment and integration [+F+C] is reached, when immigrants feel secure enough "to use the two languages more freely in accord with the demands of the immediate situation" (p. 161).

1961  Wallace

Anthropologist Anthony Wallace (1961) tried to develop a theory of a culture's modal personality structure, also called "national character". However, cultures are not closed systems: they contact and interact with other cultures, causing changes.  If the number of changes exceeds a critical threshold, then a crisis will ensue experienced as individual stress and as cultural distortion or eventually cultural collapse in which social institutions cease functioning.  Immobility [-F-C] describes the "marginal man" who is "unable to foresake the old culture, yet, because of experience in the new, unable to be happy in it either" (p. 162).  One resolution to this dilemma is assimilation [-F+C], which requires abandonment of the old culture.  Another resolution is nativism or nationalism [+F-C], which entails a sometimes military or violent retreat to the old culture, "motivated by a desire to rid the group of the presence of members of the dominant group who are a source of constant shame-producing reminders of cultural inferiority" (p. 163). A third resolution process can be found in revitalization [+F+C] of the old culture as a "deliberate syncretic cultural reorganization within a definably bounded social group" (p. 163).  Revitalization is not a congenial blending of cultures, but may entail prophetic leaders and group hysteria, leading to cultural reorganization and the groups capability to withstand intercultural contact.

1962  Bailyn & Kelman

Psychologists Lotte Baily and Herbert Kelman (1962) proposed a fourfold acculturation model based on whether or not the self-image is internally structured or externally anchored in the social system, and whether the self-image is changed or maintained as a result of the acculturative contact.  Identification [-F+C] entails an externally anchored self-image changing to fit the immediate social environment, such that "the individual adopts new patterns of behavior because they meet the expectations of certain new groups or persons" (pp. 33-34).  Resistance [+F-C] "occurs when an individual maintains his self-image through a focus on its social anchorage" (p. 34).  In an acculturative context, this would require minimizing contact with other cultural groups and separating oneself into a culturally contained minority context.  Confirmation [+F+C] means that "an individual focuses on the internal structure of the self-image, but maintains that image essentially in its original form" (p. 34).  Such individuals have a secure identity that allows them to engage in new experiences and interact with other cultural systems because these confirm and strengthen, rather than threaten, self-image.  Internalization [-F-C] refers to a self-actualizing process in which the acculturative experience results in change, making the individual ever more self-referent and independent of external cultural norms and expectations.  "The individual accepts the challenge of new experiences and re-examines his self-image in the light of the new information they provide" (p. 33).

1962  Roy

Sociologist Prodipto Roy (1962) proposed a three-stage model of how "the smaller American Indian society will be assimilated into the larger white American society with practically no perceptible impact on the culture of the latter" (p. 542).  Acculturation is defined as the process of the minority culture adopting traits of the majority culture.  Social segregation [+F-C] describes the situation of minimal but increasing acculturation, when there is still physical separation and when the minority has yet to adopt traits that give social prestige.   Social integration [+F+C] occurs when the minority participates in the formal organizations of the majority and is resident among them.  Amalgamation [-F+C] marks the complete assimilation of a minority, as indicated by the degree of intermarriage.

1963  Johnston

Ruth Johnston (1963) used a psychometric study of Polish immigrants to Australia to argue that there are two kinds of assimilation.  Subjective assimilation [-F+C] means that the immigrant has internally identified with the new society in addition to adopting the external behaviors of language use, dress, and leisure activities.  External assimilation [+F+C] means that the immigrant adopted the external behaviors of the new society but has not identified with it. 

1963  Nash & Shaw

Dennison Nash and Louis Shaw (1963) developed an organizational management acculturation typology based on humanistic theories of the Self, especially the idea of emotional attachment.  The traditional [+F-C] types lack the emotional flexibility to engage changing situations in the larger society, such that they "are the most conflicted, have the lowest energy level, and probably are more prone to psychosomatic disorders" (p. 257).  The transitional [+F+C] types are capable of an emotional repertoire suitable to either culture because they share core personality traits with the contact culture.  Thus, they have broad social affiliations, high achievement motivations, and can "cut through social dealings with a minimum of conflict" (p. 259), however, at the cost of being dependent on forces outside of themselves. The autonomous types [-F-C] have secure self-identity uncomplicated by cultural loyalties.  Thus, they can "maintain an identity in a changing situation with a minimum expenditure of energy on psychological defensive measures" (p. 260).  The transitio