Ecological Contextual Model of Acculturation

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As we may all have once experienced, acculturation is one of the most common part of our lives, either by music, language or habits. In many occasions is more noticeable, but they are still a part of our entire lives. Through my own experiences and some of my classmates we were able to identified this topic in our own lives. I being born in USA but raised in Mexico until I was 16 years old, made my acculturation really clear when I came to this country without any previous knowledge of this language or society. Everything was completely different, but I was able to adapt to a new culture in a small period of time, learning a new language and successfully ending High School. Now that I came to college, I feel that I am going to a new acculturation process, not as harsh or obvious. But leaving and having many Asian friends have been acculturated me to their Asian culture little by little. Everything starts when you put in practice small customs as taking your shoes at the door, eating rice with anything and eating specially with chopsticks. I have been presented to this, and in my opinion have become acculturated to this culture. However, not everyone stories are the same. Lizandro Laverman experienced acculturation more indirectly by his parents experiences. His parents, basically, came to the United States to have a better lifestyle. He himself personally considers himself as an American. Although he is actually 75% Guatemalan and 25% German he considers himself to be 100% American. He also speak fluent in both languages, so the English and the Spanish, but speaks English more than anything. He also feels embraced when as Guatemalan dishes. In general, his parents are only used to a lifestyle that comes from Guatemala as train...

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Marin G, Sabogal, Marin F, Otero-Sabogal (1987) Development of a short acculturation scales for hispanics. Hispanic Journal of Behavioral Sciences

Padilla (1998) Conceptual approaches to understanding acculturation. International Conference in Acculturation: Advances in Theory, Measurement, and Applied Research. University of San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA

Sandoval S(1997) Ethnic identity, acculturation, and class identity as predictors of academic achievement among Mexican-American adolescents: A social contextual analysis. The University of Nebraska at Lincoln, USA

Trickett (1996) A future for community psychology: The contexts of diversity and the diversity of contexts. American Journal of Community Psychology

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