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Globalization & Acculturation

Peter L. Hoag, Ph.D.Adjunct Faculty Member

HDEV 3303, Cultural InteractionCSU, East Bay

Spring 2016

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Contents Summary Definitions Globalization Processes Acculturation Processes Key Terms and Concepts

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Summary Definitions Acculturation: This is a special type of socialization process by which a

person from a minority culture – at any stage of life – comes into prolonged contact with a dominant culture and must therefore adapt to or adopt, for better or worst, the values of the dominate culture.

Globalization: This is a special type of acculturation process in which the values of most cultures around the world are adopting the cultural values of today’s “modern high tech society” – primarily as a consequence of the cross cultural interactions that are occurring as a result of today’s global information networks; high technology transportation systems, trade, and mass migrations, as well as the growing influence of transnational corporations (TNCs) on off-shore employment.

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Globalization: ProcessProcess: The term “globalization” encompasses a range of world-wide social, political, and economic change processes. Some discipline focus on the acculturation of the people involved in such processes; others focus on international trade; and still focus on the role of international political institutions, like the United Nations and the increasingly powerful transnational corporations (TNCs) and especially their fast rising transnational class (TCC)

Impact: While one can try to dissect the impact that each of these globalization processes have on the adult human development process, they are woven together in a complex manner, making it difficult to summarize positive or negative effects. Globalization creates new markets and wealth, even as it causes widespread suffering, disorder, and unrest. It is both a source of repression and a catalyst for global movements of social justice and emancipation.” (Source: Global Policy Forum, 2014)

Learning Objective: The objective is to understand the impact that this globalization process is having on the socialization process and, therefore, the adult human life cycle development process.

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Globalization: Impact Depending on your source of information and personal experiences, globalization processes can be viewed as having an incredibly positive or negative effect on the human lifecycle development process. And at a most basic level of analysis, major differences will depend on whether you are looking at the effects of (1) transnational corporations (TNS), (2) nation states, or just (3) people like you and me.

Globalization: A Model

Source: Adapted from Ritzer (2008)

The McDonaldization of Society

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Globalization: McDonaldization ConceptGeorge Ritzer: The developer of this model of globalization processes is a distinguished University Professor at the University of Maryland and was “…awarded the 2000 Distinguished Contributions to Teaching Award by the American Sociological Association….

The McDonaldization of Society: This book by George Ritzer has been read by hundreds of thousands of students over the past two decades and ha been translated into over a dozen languages.  Ritzer is also the author of a series best-selling social theory textbooks for McGraw-Hill. (Amazon)”

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Globalization: McDonaldization Origin

Ritzer uses the international franchise of McDonald’s as an example of the Weber-based factors affecting the globalization of any cultural phenomena, including working conditions, family values, health care and education systems, religions, and clothing.

Much of Ritzer’s globalization theories are based Max Weber’s 19th century theories on the nature of “bureaucracy. But see Ritzer’s own, much more focused explanation of his application of Weber’s concept of “bureaucratic efficiency” in his McDonaldization model.

Also check out this interesting “Prezi” show of Ritzer’s model: Media Impacts Be sure to fill your screen and then “explore the single-slide by zooming into its dozens of example insets of a McDonaldized media industry!

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Acculturation: ProcessAcculturation process occur when major, environmental or, in the below cases, political economic events force people to adopt (or at least adapt to) the values of a foreign culture under any of the following process: Migrations: Migrations to another country within which a population becomes a

cultural “minority” results in the acculturation of that minority group to the dominate group -- as in the cases of today’s forced migrations to the U.S. from the Middle East because of our perpetual, Middle Eastern wars, and from Latin America \because of the negative impact that our 1994 NAFTA has had on the Latin American economy.

Foreign Dominance: Acculturation occurs following the forced submission to the occupation of a nation by another economically dominate nation, as in the case of our possession of Native American lands, Mexico, and Hawaii in the 18 th and 19th centuries, and our present, illegal occupation of other nations around the world – either through the role of forced regime changes or the installation of U.S. military bases.

Social Networks: Adapt the values of another culture as in the case of the widespread adaptation of today’s modern lifestyle resulting from the effects of international travel, online social networks and especially – as described in George Ritzer’s McDonaldization of Society -- trade.

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Acculturation: After ContactOnce in contact, the minority culture may become either: Assimilated into the dominate culture; Separated from the dominate culture as an ethnic enclave Integrated as a “minority” group within the dominate culture; or Marginalized as an unacceptable part of the dominate culture.The members of any minority group quite often sequentially experience several or more of the above relationships within the dominate culture that they are in contact with. In the United States, “minority” groups are most often identified by not only race but also by their national or cultural origins -- as in the case of the various European groups that first settled the U.S.; or by the forced migration of post-WWII Asian, Latin American, and now Middle Eastern migrants

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Acculturation Process: General Model

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Acculturation Process: Initial Entry!

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Acculturation Process: Typical Stages

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Acculturation Process: Major Influences

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Who’s in Synch with the Swedes?

http://www.futureatlas.com/Issues/Dyschronicity.htm

The “Future Atlas” defines Dyschronicity as a measure of how much the values and lifestyle of two or more populations are out of sync in time. In this case, the comparison is with Sweden, a country most typical of where this Atlas’s author believes other MDCs in the West are now “progressing” in terms of: increasing freedoms; rising personal autonomy, if not individualism; respect for human rights; and diminishing rigidity in approach to traditions

This map presents differences in the rates at which different country’s of today’s world are acculturating to the current social values of Sweden, one of the most socially advanced nations in the world.

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The Adult Life Cycle?Sheehy: How have today’s globalization processes contributed to the increased acculturation of once separate cultures, and how has this increased acculturation of cultures in this country led to the kind of changes that Sheehy is talking about in post-1960’s America?

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End of PowerPoint:

End of Globalization?

The concept of localization – in response to the limited

carrying capacity of earth’s natural resources under the

negative impact of these globalization processes on the

environment has yet to be discussed…!