Enculturation

Bryan S. K. Kim & Yong S. Park

Given the ongoing dramatic racial/ethnic diversification of the United States, the need for counselors to understand the unique cultural backgrounds of their clients presents an important challenge. A useful construct in this effort is enculturation. In 1948 Melville J. Herskovits first described enculturation as the process of socialization into, and maintenance of, the norms of one's indigenous culture, such as the salient values, ideas, and concepts. It includes learning the cultural characteristics, such as language and traditions and customs, which distinguish the members of one group of people from another. A term that often is confounded with enculturation is acculturation. The term acculturation has been used to describe the process of contact between members of two cultural groups, particularly when groups of people migrate from their countries of origin to other countries. John W. Berry and his colleagues described acculturation as consisting of (a) contact and participation and (b) However, ...

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