An Integrated Approach to Acculturation: A Personal Journey

The intention of this professional paper is to propose a new, integrated model for acculturation which brings psychological understanding to this process. The first section of this paper gives a brief introduction and several necessary definitions. The second section introduces several existing acculturation models which I found applied to aspects of my experience, but which were inadequate in important areas. In the third diction I outlined a number of psychological models which I used to cope with acculturation and understand my experience before having contact with the acculturation material from the second section. In the fourth section I give an overview of the elements of my acculturation setting which increased the intensity of my experience. The fifth section is an analysis of that experience, through the psychological and acculturation models, in the last section I present the new, integrated acculturation model