What does acculturating mean?
Acculturating describes learning and adopting the cultural practices of another group, as when immigrants gradually become familiar with the language, customs, institutions, and social expectations of their new country. It can also describe an active process that enables this adaptation, such as a school or community helping newcomers settle into unfamiliar cultural surroundings. The word is especially common in anthropology, education, and discussions of migration and intercultural relations. It differs from assimilation in an important respect: acculturation can involve considerable cultural exchange without requiring people to abandon their original identities or replace one culture entirely with another. In everyday use, the expression often appears as "acculturating to" a new culture, country, or set of local customs. The term is useful because it captures adaptation as a gradual and potentially multidimensional process rather than simply the achievement of complete cultural sameness.
verbAcculturating means learning and adopting the cultural practices of another group, usually through sustained contact; it can also mean causing or enabling others to do so.
- Undergoing the process of learning and adopting another group's cultural practices, often while retaining aspects of one's own cultural identity.
- Causing or enabling another person or group to learn and adopt the cultural practices of a different group.
"Newcomers spent the summer acculturating to the customs and rhythms of the local community."
"Newcomers spent the summer acculturating to the customs and rhythms of the local community."
"Her first year in Tokyo was spent acculturating to Japanese workplace conventions, from formal greetings to after-work gatherings."
Acculturation is not the same as assimilation: people can learn the host culture's daily practices while retaining a strong sense of their original identity.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Where does acculturating come from?
The current cultural sense belongs to the English verb acculturate, which developed in the nineteenth century from the Latin accultūrāre, meaning "to cultivate, till." That Latin verb was formed from ad-, meaning "to, toward," and cultūra, meaning "cultivation, care." Earlier English usage could refer literally to cultivation before the verb came to mean adopting or becoming accustomed to another culture. Its Latin and English root links it with culture, cultural, cultivate, and cultivation.
Related word forms
How acculturating is actually used
Common in formal contexts involving anthropology, education, migration, and intercultural relations. In these fields it is often distinguished from assimilation because acculturation does not necessarily imply abandoning one's original cultural identity. Both intransitive and transitive uses are standard.
Easily confused with acculturating
Cultivating means developing a skill, quality, or practice, whereas acculturating means learning or enabling the learning of another group's cultural practices.