Acculturation & Enculturation Notes

Cultural Socialization

• Socialization is the general process of acquiring culture and patterns of behavior acceptable in a given cultural group.

• It involves the adoption of behavior patterns of surrounding cultures.

• It's the process of assimilating new ideas into an existing cognitive structure.

• Key outcomes include acculturation (e.g., Americanization, assimilation), enculturation (e.g., Latino-oriented cultural behaviors, beliefs, and attitudes), and ethnic-racial identity.

Acculturation

• Refers to changes in an individual’s cultural patterns (i.e., practices, values, identities).

• Results from sustained firsthand intercultural contact.

• Affects the individual’s psychological well-being and social functioning.

Process of Acculturation

• Bidimensional Approach:

  • Examines adherence to two cultures.

  • Asks whether one can adhere to both, one, or none.

• Unidimensional Approach:

  • Focuses on the adoption of values, beliefs, norms, and behaviors of a new culture.

  • Assumes that as one becomes more acculturated, one adheres less to one’s native culture.

• Acculturation is a process over time involving contact between two cultural groups, resulting in cultural changes in both parties.

• Individuals adopt values, beliefs, and practices through interactions with new cultural groups.

• Individuals can adopt some elements of a host culture while retaining certain aspects of their native culture.

John Berry’s Model of Acculturation

• Based on two principles:

  • Cultural Maintenance (Enculturation): The extent to which individuals value and wish to maintain their heritage/home culture.

  • Contact-Participation (Acculturation): The extent to which individuals value and seek out contact with those outside their own group and wish to participate in the daily life of the larger society.

Acculturation Strategies

• Integration: Maintaining cultural identity and characteristics while also maintaining relationships with other groups. (Yes to both)

• Assimilation: Not maintaining cultural identity and characteristics but maintaining relationships with other groups. (No to cultural identity, Yes to relationships)

• Separation: Maintaining cultural identity and characteristics but not maintaining relationships with other groups. (Yes to cultural identity, No to relationships)

• Marginalization: Not maintaining cultural identity and characteristics and not maintaining relationships with other groups. (No to both)

Characteristics of Acculturation (Based on Acculturation Strategies)

• Assimilated Individuals:

  • Do not want to keep their identity from their home culture.

  • Prefer to take on all of the characteristics of the new culture.

• Separated Individuals:

  • Want to separate themselves from the dominant culture and hold to the home/native culture.

  • Forced separation can be called segregation.

• Integrated/Bicultural Individuals:

  • Want to maintain their identity with their home culture.

  • Also want to take on some characteristics of the new culture.

• Marginalized Individuals:

  • Do not want anything to do with either the new culture or the old culture.

Multidimensionality of Acculturation/Enculturation

• Components/domains are assumed to change.

  • Behavioral/Practices

    • language use, media preferences, social affiliations, and cultural customs and traditions

  • Cultural Values/Attitudes

    • belief systems associated with a specific context or group, such as the value placed on the individual person versus the value placed on the family or other group

    • Familism—behavioral and attitudinal

    • Independence/interdependence

  • Cultural Identifications

    • attachments to cultural groups, and the positive esteem drawn from these attachments

    • Racial-ethnic identity

Context and Acculturation

• Societal Context & Acculturation

  • Acceptance of diversity, acculturation expectations, and multicultural policies impact the maintenance and change in cultural orientations and how acculturation relates to adaptive outcomes.

  • Some studies suggest that prejudice against immigrants predicts a stronger desire for cultural maintenance in immigrant groups.

  • In assimilationist environments, cultural maintenance in ethnic minorities can lead to lower levels of life satisfaction.

  • Ward, C., & Geeraert, N. (2016). Advancing acculturation theory and research: The acculturation process in its ecological context. Current Opinion in Psychology, 8, 98-104.

Assessing Acculturation & Enculturation

• Behaviors

  • Language use

  • Media use

  • Social affiliations

  • Ethnic-racial background of friends

• Values/attitudes

  • Familism

  • Religious Beliefs

  • Gender Roles

• Ethnic-racial Identity

  • exploration

  • affirmation

  • resolution

  • Public regard

  • Private regard

  • centrality

• Demographics

  • Educational status

  • Employment

    • E.g., White collar or blue collar

  • Immigrant generational status

Questions to Assess Acculturation & Enculturation

1. What language do you speak?

2. What language do you prefer?

3. How do you self identify?

4. Which ethnic identification does (did) your mother and father use?

5. What was the ethnic origin of the friends and peers you had as a child?

6. Whom do you now associate with in the outside community?

7. What is your music/television/movie preference?

8. Where were you born?

9. Where were you raised?

10. What is your food preference?

11. What language do you read/write/think it?

12. How much pride do you have in your ethnic group?

Cultural Values

• Emphasis on family relationships and a strong value placed on family life; sense of belonging, solidarity, family pride, and loyalty

  • Domains: support, obligations, referent

    • Support: Family provides emotional support and maintain close relationships

    • Obligation: You have family responsibilities (e.g., caregiving) that you must fulfill

    • Referent: You should confer with your family when making decisions and defining yourself

Cultural Values: Traditional Gender Roles

• Expectations for Males vs. Females in behaviors and values

  • For females, marianismo, cultural conceptions of important female characteristics and values

  • For males, the cultural traditions of machismo and caballerismo are conceptions of masculinity

Cultural Values: Respect for Elders

• Focus on intergenerational behaviors

  • Show deference in demeanor

  • Yield to elders’ wisdom on decisions

Cultural Values: Religion

• Faith in a higher power

  • Spiritual beliefs

Mainstream Values

• Material Success

• Independence & Self-Reliance

  • Vs. Collectivism

• Competition & Personal Achievement

Other Cultural Values: Fatalism

• Feel your destiny is beyond your control

• Sample Items

  • It is more important to enjoy life now than plan for the future

  • People die when it is their time and there is not much that can be done about it.

  • It is not always wise to plan too far ahead because many things turn out to be a matter of good and bad fortune anyway.

  • It doesn’t do any good to try to change the future because the future is in the hands of God.

Other Cultural Values: Personalismo

• Warm and personal way of relating to others

• Sample Items

  • I like to greet people in a warm and friendly manner.

  • Good manners are more important than formal education.

Other Cultural Values: Folk Illness Beliefs

• Sample Items

  • My family and I have used the services of curanderos/as in the past.

  • I have been treated for susto.

  • I have been treated for Mal de Ojo.

Remember: Within Group Diversity

• Do all Latinx individuals adhere to these values?

• What factors can account for differences?

  • Location, generational status, gender, social class, age

Roche et al.: Cultural Orientation and Educational Achievement

• Research question: “How are U.S. and Mexican cultural orientations associated with Mexican-origin youth’s educational attainment?”

• Introduction

  • Second-generation Mexican immigrants complete less formal schooling than more recently immigrated people

  • Selective assimilation theory: people who are immigrants adopt some parts of the host culture while keeping certain elements of their native culture

  • Acculturation occurs when people modify their beliefs, practices, and values by interacting with new cultural groups

  • Enculturation refers to the degree to which individuals adopt beliefs, practices and values of their family/native culture

  • Familism is a central value in Latinx culture. Familism refers to family loyalty, solidarity, and attachment along with cooperation and shared responsibilities

  • The Mexican cultural emphasis on interdependence can promote and inhibit youth’s educational attainment

  • Strong family values and connection can inspire Latinx youth to do well in school

  • Behavioral demands by the family can inhibit educational attainment by youth’s entering the work fore at an early age to support the family, language brokering for parents, and fulfilling household tasks

• Method

  • Data from three waves of The Children of Immigrants Longitudinal Study (CILS)

  • 49 private and public schools in Miami/Ft. Lauderdale and San Diego

  • 755 second-generation Mexican immigrant youths focus for paper

    • 8th and 9th graders at Time 1 (1992); average age (14 yrs old)

    • Time 3 in 2002; average age (24 year olds)

    • 50% female

• Measures

  • Educational Attainment

    • Highest year of school the youth had completed

  • Language

    • How well the youth speaks, reads, writes, and understands English

    • How often they spoke Spanish at home

  • Ethnic Behavioral Preferences

    • Total number of friends in the city/county and the number of friends not born in the country of birth

  • Values and Beliefs Emphasizing Interdependence

    • Vignettes measuring the youths’ values on social ties to get jobs early in life versus achieving individual success

  • Background Variables

    • Age, gender, academic achievement, parents’ educational achievement

• Key Findings

  • Youth attained more formal education when:

    • Greater English ability

    • Greater endorsement of familism values

  • Youth attained less formal education when

    • Parents’ friendships mostly included U.S.- born individuals

    • Youth endorsed scenario of paid work prior to finishing high school, rather than choosing to stay in school because long- term it would be better for adolescent

• Discussion

  • Youth’s entire cultural repertoire (language, parents’ U.S. social ties, familism, orientation to work/school) is associated with youth’s educational attainment

  • Parent and youth’s cultural orientations towards the U.S. and Mexico for acculturation appear to contribute to the long- term educational attainment of second-generation Mexican immigrant youth

Smokowski et al. 2009: Acculturation and Adjustment- Cultural Risks and Assets

• Study goal: Examine cultural risk factors and assets as predictors of mental health (internalizing problems, externalizing behaviors), self-esteem and educational outcomes

• Introduction

  • Latino youth engage in high levels of risky biopsychosocial behaviors related to negative long-term consequences and acculturation factors have been implicated in these patterns

  • Higher host cultural involvement (assimilated into US-culture)

    • more delinquency, more antisocial peer affiliation

  • lower host cultural involvement (low acculturation, low English fluency)

    • fear of victimization; Increased anxiety

  • Lower involvement in Latino culture

    • More depressive symptoms, lower optimism

  • higher involvement in Latino culture

    • more self-esteem

  • Biculturalism (e.g., fluency in both languages)

    • less likely to drop out

    • fewer emotional and behavioral program

    • less delinquency, less aggression

• Method

  • 281 Latino families (adolescent and one parent) in North Carolina and Arizona

    • 78% of adolescents lived with 2 parents; 21% with single parent

    • Median grade: 9th grade

    • 58% from Mexico, 21% U.S. born, remainder from Central/South America

    • More foreign-born parents and adolescents in NC than AZ

  • 2 hrs per family, interviews at their homes; Spanish and Eng versions

  • metropolitan, small town, rural areas

• Measures

  • Outcomes Variables

    • Self-esteem, hopelessness, humiliation, social problems

    • Aggression, anxiety, school belonging

  • Home cultural involvement (Hispanicism)

    • Assessed for parents and adolescents

    • Measures language, food, recreation, and media use

  • U.S. Involvement (Americanism)

    • Assessed for parents and adolescents

    • Measures language, food, recreation, and media use

  • Time in the U.S.

    • Average 7 yrs, range 1 month to 18 years

    • For U.S.-born adolescents, their age was used as time in the U.S.

• Findings

  • Adolescent Culture of origin Involvement

    • Positive impact on Self-Esteem

    • Inverse impact on Hopelessness, Humiliation, Social Problems

  • Adolescent U.S. Cultural Involvement

    • Inverse impact on Hopelessness, Aggression, Anxiety, School Bonding

  • Time in U.S.

    • Inverse impact on Humiliation

  • Parent Culture of origin Involvement

    • Positive impact Social Problems

  • Parent U.S. Cultural Involvement

    • Negative impact on Anxiety

Cultural Orientation, Parenting, Child Behaviors (Wood et al):

• Latinas tend to hold socialization goals for their children that emphasize proper demeanor and respect for elders (i.e. respeto and familism)

• Latina mothers employ behaviors that emphasize a directive, controlling, and protective approach to parenting, more so than EA mothers, who have a tendency toward democratic styles

• Results between controlling parenting and poor child outcomes for samples of Latina mothers and their children are mixed

  • Controlling behaviors of Latina mothers have not uniformly related to poor child outcomes especially within less acculturated Latino families

Adolescent Mothers

• Among female adolescents ages 15-19, Latinas have the highest birthrates in the USA

• Adolescent Motherhood is associated with numerous contextual risk factors

  • This increases the likelihood of parenting difficulties and in turn impacts critical childhood outcomes (i.e. self-regulatory behaviors)

• Characteristics and contexts of adolescent mothers compared to adult mothers include risk factors (i.e. poverty, single parenthood, lower parental education, depressive symptoms, etc.) which place them at a higher likelihood of employing behaviors that hinder their children's development

• Individuals of Puerto Rican origin have the highest rates of poverty amongst all Latino subgroups in the USA

• Study Sample

  • 123 Puerto Rican adolescent mothers (Mage= 17.93 years) and their toddlers (47.2% were female; 86.2% were first-born or only-child)

    • Drawn from a larger study of Latina adolescent mothers and their toddlers

    • Majority of mothers received less than a high school diploma

    • Majority of mothers were born in the USA (59.3%)

    • Most mothers (89.4%) reported receiving some kind of government assistance

  • Data was collected from 2 time points

    • When children were 18 (W1) and 24 (W2) months

    • Observational data used to code child reactivity was collected at W1

    • Clean-up task observations and self-report data were collected at W2

  • Participants were recruited from low-income neighborhoods in Midwest city

• Guidance was coded when a mother approached the task in a gentle or playful manner to engage the child and elicit interest in the task; mothers often used games, songs, collaborative statements and questions (e.g., “let’s put the toys away,” “can you show me how to clean up?”) or praise and encouragement (e.g., “good girl!”, “what a big boy!”).

• Control was coded when a mother used assertive commands (e.g., “put that in the box”) and prohibitions (e.g., “you cannot play anymore”), delivered repeatedly either as matter-of-fact statements or with impatience. nonforceful physically controlling behaviors (e.g., taking toys from child, physically orienting child toward toy box, blocking child from toys) counted as instances of control.

• Committed compliance (hereon referred to as compliance) was assigned when a child eagerly cleaned up toys on his or her own or sought help from mother in doing so and Defiance was coded when a child displayed anger or emotionally dysregulated behaviors such as screaming and crying.

Findings

• Mothers who frequently used guidance to facilitate clean-up had children who demonstrated greater compliance

• Children whose mothers endorsed more Latino cultural values and practices (i.e., enculturation) demonstrated more compliance than those with less enculturated mothers

• Mothers with more frequent use of control had children who displayed more defiant behaviors

  • Only for mothers who endorsed high levels of mainstream American orientation

• Temperamental tendencies during 18m were significantly related to child behaviors 6m later

• More life Stressors, more defiance in children

Socialization is the comprehensive and gradual process of acquiring the cultural norms, values, and behaviors that are perceived as acceptable within a specific cultural group. This process plays a vital role in shaping an individual’s social identity and contributes to societal cohesion by fostering shared understandings and practices among group members.

It entails the adoption and adaptation of behavior patterns from surrounding cultures, making it essential for individuals navigating multicultural environments. It is also the process of assimilating new ideas, practices, and value systems into an existing cognitive structure, allowing for cognitive flexibility and cultural adaptability.

Key outcomes of socialization include acculturation, which refers to the modifications in personal cultural patterns resulting from sustained interactions with different cultural groups, such as Americanization and assimilation into mainstream society. It also involves enculturation, wherein individuals internalize the significant cultural behaviors, beliefs, and attitudes typical of their native culture, such as Latino-oriented perspectives and traditions. Additionally, individuals develop their ethnic-racial identity through these processes, which significantly influences their self-perception and worldview.

Acculturation

Acculturation refers to the transformative changes in an individual’s cultural patterns, including their practices, values, and identities, as a result of sustained firsthand intercultural contact. This dynamic process may result in positive or negative consequences, affecting the individual’s psychological well-being and social functioning depending on their engagement with both their heritage and host cultures.

Process of Acculturation

The process of acculturation is analyzed through various theoretical approaches, including:

• Bidimensional Approach: This approach examines the extent to which individuals can adhere to two cultures simultaneously. It evaluates whether individuals maintain aspects of their native culture while integrating elements of the new culture, potentially leading to a more complex cultural identity.

• Unidimensional Approach: In contrast, this method focuses solely on the adoption of values, beliefs, norms, and behaviors of the new culture, often positing that increased acculturation correlates with reduced adherence to one’s original culture.

Acculturation is recognized as a gradual and ongoing process that involves intricate interactions between individuals and two cultural groups, resulting in cultural transformations in both parties.

John Berry’s Model of Acculturation

Berry’s model is structured on two foundational principles that influence acculturation outcomes:

• Cultural Maintenance (Enculturation): This principle assesses the extent to which individuals are committed to preserving their heritage and home culture, promoting intergenerational cultural exchange.

• Contact-Participation (Acculturation): This principle gauges the degree to which individuals seek interactions with individuals from other cultural groups, highlighting their willingness to integrate into the broader society while navigating their own cultural identity.