Acculturation In American Universities

Berry discussed acculturation on the individual level and stated that even despite there being overall changes within a group, individuals’ changes might vary significantly as a part of these collective changes. The theory emphasizes factors prior and during the process of acculturation (pre-arrival and post-arrival) as well as highlights group and cultural (i.e. political context) and social/psychological (social factors, language proficiency) variables that influence the acculturation experience (Berry, 2005).
Within Berry’s model, the two dimensions of heritage-culture retention and receiving-culture acquisition interact to create four acculturation categories. These categories include assimilation, separation, integration, and marginalization. Berry defined an assimilated sojourner as …show more content…
Their research highlights the importance of focusing on social factors when helping these international students adjust to American universities. Specifically, there was a stronger relationship found between connections to the dominant culture as opposed to their specific ethnic group (Du, 2012). This gives insight into the ways universities should handle distress and culture shock, especially when these students are referred for counseling. Universities should promote support groups, cross-cultural mentoring, or host family programs to yield higher social connectedness for students to people of the dominant culture. Additionally, knowing that English proficiency was a important factor in acculturation, schools should provide a pre-arrival program for those with lower English proficiency as well as make sure that individuals are patient with these students, as this may be an critical factor related to their comfort level, especially in disclosing difficulties (Yan & Berliner ,