Acculturation Research Critiques and Alternative Research Designs

Dictionary definitions concur that “acculturation” means second-culture acquisition, but “acculturation” began as a Eurocentric concept that inferior peoples improve themselves by imitating superior peoples. Shadows of this persist despite the acceleration of acculturation research from nine studies per decade in the 1920s to the current rate of more than 6000 per decade. Reviews of this research have noted confused findings and lack of utility. Critics either (1) advocate for qualitative methods because culture, identity, and human experience are too complex for psychometric methods, or (2) recommend new models and new forms of quantitative analysis, or (3) fault research for poor social science practices. Rudmin (2006) has argued that academics’ shared liberal ideology causes collective confirmation bias that shapes research to promote advocacy of bicultural integration. Many future research designs and projects are proposed, including emic studies of rural-urban migration in China and the development of single-case measures of acculturative competence.acculturation, bicultural, confirmation bias, China, definitions, history, integration, liberal ideology, psychometrics, research design