Enculturation Essay

The way we walk, the way we talk and down to if you prefer the toilet paper under or over is all because the process of enculturation. It’s the oldies music I love because The Grand Illusion was the only CD my dad had as we drove all the way to Mexico. I was seven when we took that road trip and it was the biggest culture shock I had experienced up until then. The stacked houses, dense shopping malls, and vibrant social squares were blanketed with the smell of beef and potatoes. All of this overwhelmed me and sent me into an inward spiral, lost in how to even begin in a place so foreign. Everyone looked like me but I felt like a complete outsider and had to go through the hardest process of acculturation so far. Forced to become aware, apprehend, and accept the host cultures appropriate behaviors and norms for effective communication competence. Fundamentally, enculturation is the process we live through to obtain culture, …show more content…
We obtain these from our families, from our peers, and from institutions like school. Culture is obtained by using all five senses and is communicated, not passed down through genetics, but through stories passed down from generation to generation. Due to this, people of similar physical traits may also be more likely to have similar or even matching cultural characteristics. However, according to (Steiner, 2013), “the acculturation process is hindered by one’s tacit assumptions about the structures and relationships of the former society.” This is done in two stages the first being informal enculturation, the subconscious internalization of social rules. This will form basic family relationships that are based on who raises us and what morals, rules, and guidelines we follow. The second being formal enculturation which is learned while is school, it is how we learn and grow independent of our