acculturation: one construct, many systems

In anthropology, acculturation is the change that happens in one or both cultures when groups with different ways of life come into continuous first-hand contact. Redfield, Linton, and Herskovits's 1936 Memorandum for the Study of Acculturation gave the canonical definition and distinguished it from diffusion and assimilation, framing it as a group-level process with outcomes ranging from acceptance to adaptation to reaction. The referent is cultural transformation produced by sustained intergroup contact, studied at the level of the group, and it is the same construct that cross-cultural psychology later carried down to the individual.[1]

Unit

The degree and direction of culture change in a group under sustained contact

Recovery means

Not applicable

Measured by

Documented ethnographically through changes in practices, institutions, and material culture following prolonged intergroup contact

In cross-cultural psychology, acculturation is the same contact-driven change seen from the standpoint of the individual: how a person navigates a heritage culture and a new one, and the identity, attitude, and well-being outcomes that follow. Berry's 1997 Immigration, Acculturation, and Adaptation organised these into strategies (integration, assimilation, separation, and marginalisation) defined by whether a person maintains the heritage culture and whether they engage the larger society. The referent is the individual's psychological adjustment under cultural contact, the same construct as the anthropologists' group process, scaled down to the person and measured by attitude and adaptation.[2]

Unit

An individual's strategy and adjustment across two cultural systems

Recovery means

Not applicable

Measured by

Assessed with acculturation-strategy scales and measures of psychological and sociocultural adaptation