Acculturation Strategies
Acculturation Strategies in cross-cultural psychology, a framework proposing four ways in which members of a non-dominant group (e.g., immigrants, racial or ethnic minorities) may experience acculturation and manage their contact with and participation in the culture of a larger, dominant group. The assimilation strategy is one in which individuals do not wish to maintain their original cultural identity and prefer instead to seek daily interaction with the dominant group. By contrast, the separation strategy is one in which individuals hold onto their original culture and avoid interaction with the dominant group. A third strategy is an integration, in which individuals maintain their original culture while still seeking to participate as an integral part of the larger social network. The fourth strategy, marginalization, describes an unwillingness or inability of individuals to identify with and participate in either their culture of origin or that of the dominant group. These strategies are partly determined by the extent to which the dominant group does or does not force a non-dominant group to adapt to its cultural mandates or constraints (e.g., through discrimination [proposed by Canadian psychologist John W. Berry (1939– )]
