Chapter 13, part 2

Adapting to Diversity: Culture Shock

Stages in Culture Shock

Adaptation stage – starts to identify more with the new country and its members; develop relationships with its members

Reentry stage – returning to home culture; reverse culture shock

W-Curve Theory

Inventory of Reentry Problems

Cultural Social LinguisticNational and politicalEducational Professional

(p 257)

Acculturation

The process of learning and adjusting to a new set of behaviors (in the adaptation stage of culture shock) (p 258)

Taking over traits of another culture; physical, biological, cultural, social, psychological

Personal Developments of Acculturation

Cultural adjustment – feelings of comfort in the new culture

Identification – a sense of belonging to the new culture

Cultural competence – willingness to learn the language and increase knowledge of the new culture

Role enculturation – adopts the behaviors associated with role in new culture (p 258-9)

Communication and Acculturation

Four dimensions to test adaptability:

1. Emotional resilience

2. Flexibility / openness

3. Perceptual acuity

4. Personal autonomy

Coping on a Short-Term Basis

1. Nonacceptance

2. Substitution

3. Addition

4. Synthesis

5. Resynthesis

Assimilation and Pluralism

Assimilation – the process in which immigrants become absorbed into the native population through convergence

Cultural patterns disappearCultures blendSome patterns become part of the

dominant culture

(p 261)

Theories of Assimilation

1. The Anglo-Conformity theory – expectation that immigrants will completely renounce their culture

2. The Melting Pot theory the blending, creating something new(p 261)

Cultural Pluralism

Maintaining the separate and distinct parts of cultural groups