Assimilation, Segmented

Classic Theories of Assimilation

The idea of segmented assimilation arose from the critiques of classic theories of assimilation. In the literature on immigrant adaptation, the classical assimilation perspective has dominated much of the sociological thinking since the early 20th century. Central to the classical perspective are several main assumptions: (a) that there is a natural process by which diverse ethnic groups come to share a common culture and gain equal access to the opportunity structure of the host society; (b) that this process entails the gradual abandonment of old-world cultural and behavioral patterns in favor of new ones; and (c) that this process, once set in motion, moves inevitably and irreversibly toward assimilation.

Classical assimilation scholars generally operate on the premise that the host society consists of a single mainstream dominated by a majority group (in the case of the United States, White Anglo-Saxon Protestants, or WASPs). Migration leads to the situation of the “marginal man,” where a member of an ethnic minority group is pulled in the direction of the host culture but drawn back by his or her culture of origin. This bipolar process entails a natural race relations cycle of contact, competition, and accommodation that was developed by Robert E. Park at the University of Chicago in the 1920s. Impacted by biotic forces (impersonal competition) and social forces (communication and cooperation), diverse immigrant groups from underprivileged backgrounds are expected to eventually abandon their old ways of life and completely “melt” into the mainstream through residential integration and occupational achievement in a sequence of succeeding generations. Scholars from this perspective emphasize the natural process leading to the reduction of social and cultural heterogeneity to the neglect of structural constraints. Other classical assimilation scholars such as Milton M. Gordon acknowledge the potency of such institutional factors as family socioeconomic status (SES), phenotypical ranking, and racial/ethnic subsystems in determining the rate of different types of assimilation, ranging from cultural, structural, marital, identificational, attitude-receptional, behavior-receptional, to civic assimilation.

From the classical perspective, distinctive ethnic traits such as old-world cultures, native languages, and ethnic enclaves—as well as ethnicity in the abstract—are disadvantages that hinder assimilation, but their negative effects diminish with each successive generation. Native-born generations adopt English as their primary means of communication and become more and more similar to the mainstream U.S. population in life skills, manner, and outlook. Between the 1930s and the 1960s, America seemed to have absorbed the great waves of immigrants who arrived primarily from Europe.

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