Acculturation/Cultural Assimilation - Lecture note

Cultural assimilation is :

• Dominant culture → minority
• Dominant culture ←minority
• Culture A ⇔ Culture B

• Forced or volunteered?
e.g.
辮髪 in China
Muumuu in Hawaii
Native American


Dominant culture → minority
Case 1: Queue in China

Case 2: Muumuu in Hawaii

Case 3: Native American
Areas where thy live was restricted
Baptize
  Force enrolling the mission school
Prohibit using of their language
Banned practicing ritual, festival, dance, and making handicraft

Dominant culture ←minority
Case of Japanese-American

Group work
1) Provide examples of assimilation
2) How do you evaluate the acculturation and its consequence?

Culture - Lecture note

Outline of presentation

1.Describing culture

2. Element of culture

3. Feature of culture

4. Cultural Variation

5. Attitude toward cultural Variation

Q. What is your understanding of culture?

Describing > Defining ?!

Anthropologist agreed with describing it rather than defining it.

Material culture: Tangible, you can see and touch 

e.g. house, food, car, traditional dress… 

Nonmaterial culture: Way of doing  things, thinking

e.g. language, body language, custom …

Elements of culture

Knowledge

Value

Language ** If you want to know how language and culture are preserved, you can watch this video. My friend is there in the video :D

Gesture/Nonverbal Communication

Norms(Folkways, Mores, Taboo)→Sanctions(Positive and Negative)

Belief 

Feature of culture are; 

Learned : Person will learn and obtain it

Shared : Group of people doing the same

Transmitted : One generation to another

Changing : it is not 

permanent! 

Aspects of Cultural Variation

Subculture: 

Counter culture: 

Attitude toward culture

Ethnocentrism: 

Cultural Relativism: 

ReferenceOxford Sociology dictionary 

·      Schaefer, Richard T. 2004. Sociology, 9^th edition New York: McGraw Hill, Inc.