Acculturation

Acculturation refers to the process of cultural and psychological change that takes place as a result of contact between cultural groups and their individual members, as defined in the 1930s by Robert Redfield, Ralph Linton, and Melville Herskovits. Such contact and change occur for many reasons (such as colonization and migration). It continues after the initial contact between the various cultural groups in culturally diverse societies, where ethnocultural communities maintain features of their heritage cultures over generations; and it takes place in all the groups in contact. The concept of acculturation strategies refers to the various ways in which individuals and groups seek to engage the process of acculturation. The concept of adaptation refers to the longer term outcomes of the process of acculturation. Occasionally, ...