Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright once said, “As a leader, you have to have the ability to assimilate new information and understand that there might be a different view.” The statement seems simple enough, but in order to fully appreciate it, an understanding of a fairly uncommon word is required. This word is assimilation. Though at first glance assimilation doesn’t appear to be too daunting a term, its diverse definitions play a significant role in more domains than many would initially anticipate.
The word assimilation has many different meanings. Its interpretations range from the digesting of nutrients to the transfer of similar sounds. When sifting through the various definitions, however, there is one concept that always
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This component can be accredited to psychologist Jean Piaget. As he presented it, assimilation is the use of one’s general knowledge to a specific experience. By molding previous experiences with new understanding, one can create a new interpretation of belief. This technique tends to be subjective, due to the fact that human nature often keeps with the old and makes new experiences mold to existing ones. One can assimilate all of their newfound beliefs, or just those with which they are most attuned to. In the case that a person's perspective radically veers from his or her original reasoning, it is no longer assimilation. Instead, it is refereed to as accommodation, Piaget's second method of comprehending information. Like these doctrines, assimilation can also be subdivided into smaller, individualized …show more content…
Each type is connected to societies or groups of people living in close proximity, and frequently involves the molding of speech, beliefs, or customs. While some types focus on a certain subject, such as language assimilation, most are more complex. One such type is reciprocal assimilation, where more than one social group comes together under a common value. A very relatable example can be found in the aftermath of the 9-11 attacks on the World Trade Center. After this savage assault on our society, people of all ages, background, and ethnicity shared the same disgust and despair toward the world of terrorism. This type of assimilation is closely related to identificational assimilation which, as described by Professor Kristyn Hammond, “refers to the willingness of multiple social groups to self-identify --choose to identify-- with a unified identity.” This can be seen when more than one societal group unites under a commonality; it is partially how proud and patriotic terms like “Americans” came to be. Though these subsets stem from somewhat similar subjects, other branches of assimilation handle much different
...namic Model of Cultural Assimilation (2002): n. pag. Bc.edu. Boston College, Nov. 2002. Web. 20 Nov. 2013. .
It is essential to understand the differences and similarities that people have within other people, to just try to accept the fact that some people may be different. However conversation often leads to social change because people tend to want to fit in where most people are the same. Appiah explains “Depending on the circumstances, conversations across boundaries can be delightful, or just vexing” (Page 73). That is why Appiah believes people need to be more accepting, more globalized. He initially feels that conversation can lead people to create change and can hinder their reasons to fit in because they are different. However, conversation is not enough because people are still changing to fit in, people are constantly feeling left out, not valued for their customs or beliefs. He also asserts “We can’t hope to reach a final consensus on how to rank and order such values. That’s why the model i 'll be returning to is that of conversation” (Appiah 73). With this being said it is clearly stated how Appiah is a firm believer that conversation is the number one key for understanding of others. This can be very controversial because Munoz may disagree. He asserts “The English- only way of life partly explains the quiet erasure of cultural difference that assimilation has attempted to accomplish” (Munoz 308). Conversation is leading to a change that is creating to erase the differences among people. For instance, Munoz asserts how people are changing their names because they feel comfortable and different. People are erasing their names and putting American names and forgetting where their names came from and how much it means to their culture. This is a major issue when conversation is changing but not necessarily for the better. It does create and effect in many people whom they are talked into how they are different and due to because people just don’t accept and understand the different cultures. It is
Most often it is when a person is more than one racial identity. This makes people socially identify with a particular race. The text discusses “immigration exposition and the desire to claim ones heritage in full measure , as well as greater openness to intimate unions across racial an ethnic lines “multiracial” is now identity classifications. I know the Garcia daughters are full Dominican but the girls struggled with their race several times. They felt as if they were more American then Dominican. They felt more comfortable speaking the English language then their own native Spanish language. The Garcia daughters would classify them self as Americans more so then
Assimilation is the idea of mixing culture and knowledge of one's group with another's group. This was clear that work needed to be done by the fact
276). Curtin’s Coculturation (2010) combats this hegemonic discourse by stating, “everyone is continually engaged in social and political processes of identification” (p. 283). Thus, one’s identity can consist of multiple cultures and they can in fact coincide. The idea that one group “belongs” in a particular imagined community is a myth, there is no single response or adaption. The theory of Coculturation ultimately accommodates to a more realistic approach to cultural adjustment where a newcomer can adopt some behavior of the host culture while still maintaining the conciliatory and subconscious aspects of their native
For starters, schemas can be defined as the basic building block intelligent behavior or a way of organizing knowledge. (MacLeod 2015) Moving forward, assimilation is simply using existing knowledge and applying it to new information. It’s like using skills from one experience and using that to help figure out a newer and similar encounter. Accommodation is slightly different, this is when people adjust their schemas to new information rather than using previous knowledge to do things. You can think of it as rethinking old strategies when there’s a new challenge that presents
Assimilation is when you take new information or experiences and include them into your existing perceptions and understandings. This means that when you have new information you make sense of it from the information you already had. Accommodation is when you take new information and alter or even change the existing information you had. For example, say you have a friend who you have always known to be super nice to everyone, and one day you see her yelling and being mean to someone in the hallway. If you were to use the assimilation process, you could forgive the girls behavior, believing she might of just had a bad day. If you were to use accommodation, you might change your opinion on the girl and think maybe she isn't as nice as you thought she
Assimilation means adapting to a society or culture by learning there ways of life. In this case, for the immigrants based in the United States, assimilation is the key to being accepted as an American. In the early 1960s the U.S had formed strategies that limited the amount of immigrants coming into the country; this mostly favored the Europeans from the North. Later, the Immigration and Nationality Act was approved and this allowed more Asians, Africans and Latin Americans into the U.S. this resulted to an increase in influx of both illegal and legal immigrants allowed in the country.
Many people in America want to assimilate to the U.S. because they think that being American is a better option. People such as the Italians in the 1870s tried to assimilate in order to become an American to not become an enemy in the U.S. Also, the Mexicans today are constantly coming to the U.S. to have a better life because they know being American is the best solution for their problems at home. What assimilation mean is when a person leaves one’s own culture to join a different culture the person wants to be. For the purpose of this essay, an American is a person who has commitment to succeed in what one wants, able to speak english, to love the pop culture in the U.S. at the time one is living such as the hit songs, games, T.V. shows, etc. but not to other cultures, and be a citizen in America. People throughout history must assimilate to become a true American
2016, p. 49). During assimilation a person uses an existing scheme to understand a new experience (Hoffnung et al. 2016, p. 49) meaning the new concept is adjusted under their current understanding. An example Lilienfeld et al. (2015) use states that if a child believes the earth is flat and learns it is round they may assimilate this idea by picturing a flat disk such as a coin; this allows them to absorb the new information without changing their current viewpoint. Whereas accommodation is the adjustment of existing schemata when it cannot fit into a new concept (Hoffnung et al. 2016, p. 49) therefore accommodation creates a change in a child’s original conception of that idea (Lilienfeld et al. 2015, p. 409). Both processes are essential to the growth and development of a person’s cognition (Wadsworth, 1989, p. 19), their cooperation is known as adaptation and according to Piaget without development would not occur (Hoffnung et al. 2016, p.
Back to the American history, "assimilation" policy was introduced to the Native Americans during the earliest colonial times. During that time, all American Indians must either adopt the White's lifestyles or perish. With the declaration of the Dawes Act, a goal of destroying all tribal structure and their communal life were summoned. Tribal lands were divided among natives and the Westerners, leaving the natives, a land surrounded by the foreigners. With such acts, the American Indians were slowly assimilated into the White's culture and without their own people around them, they will have to communicate with the Westerners with their language instead of their indigenous languages; they ...
Piaget had a phrase that said “Assimilation and Accommodation lead to Adaptation.” Assimilation is when a person fits his or her external information in with what he or she already knows. The change is external in this case. Accommodation is the exact opposite. This is when you have to modify what you already know to make some sense out of the external information. The change is internal. A person must use both of these tactics in order to adapt to a situation (external or internal) correctly and have a regulated equilibrium.
Assimilation, different from accommodation, implied that the “outsider” group actually came to accept and internalise the values and culture of the native group which usually shows up at second generation of immigrants. They grow up with two different cultures and they will have to face the difference between these cultures and form their own opinion and tendency which may eventually coming out a behavior stander of the combination of two cultures. People in this period will have more individual understanding because they have chance to choose they life they want to live. It also means this period is not only the most important time for assimilation but also the most struggling time. Just as what Eric’s mentioned in “Notes of a Native Speaker”, “Being an ABC certainly affected me another way. It made me feel like something of a greenhorn, a social immigrant”. Most offsprings of immigrants will have the same confusion because they get their early education from their parents, but after experiencing social contacts(generally after they go to school), a new sense of value from the society will refresh their brains. Some people says that these kids are blessed because they have chance to aware two cultures and get benefits from both, but some would say they are cursed to live in a life like this because they have to face so many confusions in a young age. What
Multiculturalism vs Assimilation America is a place where many cultures and races co-exist, so there are many different opinions and beliefs. Of course there is bound to be tension and misunderstandings, which unfortunately escalates (in some cases) into violence that we hear about in the media. So what is the solution? Should we all assimilate to one standard or should we recognize our individual cultures and consider ourselves multicultural? The answer is not an easy one to define.
...accomplished the assimilation into one race, it consists of people sharing a similar identity. In the words of Richard Rodriguez, ?We are gathered together-but as individuals?we stand together, alone,? thus people will assimilate but as individual ?Americans?.