Individual and group relations in plural societies - Berry - 1997 - Article


Individual and group relations

There are no longer any societies that are homogeneous. Every society is diverse. There are various responses to diversity in societies. For example, societies can celebrate or deny diversity, they can share or isolate diversity, they can absorb or suppress diversity. Diversity influences the functioning of groups.

Diversity in cultures can arise in many ways (slavery, colonization, migration). People with different cultural backgrounds have to live together in a diverse society. They form cultural groups that differ in status. You can put these groups in two different models: a majority-minority model in which one culture dominates the other. But there is also a multicultural model that represents different cultural groups and can overlap between groups. Diversity must be reduced in the first model, while diversity is a source in the second model.

The different societies are investigated and divided into two domains: acculturation and ethnic relationships. Acculturation indicates how people change when they come into contact with other groups. People then have to look to what extent they want to adopt habits from other cultures and how they want to preserve their own culture. Getting in contact with other cultures can be voluntary, for example due to immigration. It can also go involuntarily, for example, by guest workers. The question is how the cultural minority acculturates.

This is possible in four ways. People can fully adapt to the new culture and leave the old culture behind (assimilation). They can also connect with parts of the new culture and also keep parts of their own culture (integration). An example of integration is speaking Dutch at school, but speaking the native language at home. It may also be that they want to fully preserve their own culture (separation). Finally, people can also oppose both cultures (marginalization). In the four cases of acculturation, it is assumed that people can choose to what extent they adapt to the culture. Integration is found to be the most comfortable way, since people do not have to fully adapt to a diverse society. The dominant culture must be open to this.

Rights

In the past, diversity within companies was not an issue. In addition to individual rights, collective rights (cultural rights) are now being requested within institutions. This could conflict with individual rights. There are two types of collective rights: the internal restrictions and the external protection. In the first type, the freedom of the individual can be limited. For the second type, the power of the dominant group is limited to protect the non-dominant group. These rights can occur in many institutions, such as schools, companies and sports clubs.

Join World Supporter
Join World Supporter
Log in or create your free account

Why create an account?

  • Your WorldSupporter account gives you access to all functionalities of the platform
  • Once you are logged in, you can:
    • Save pages to your favorites
    • Give feedback or share contributions
    • participate in discussions
    • share your own contributions through the 7 WorldSupporter tools
Follow the author: Vintage Supporter
Promotions
verzekering studeren in het buitenland

Ga jij binnenkort studeren in het buitenland?
Regel je zorg- en reisverzekering via JoHo!

Access level of this page
  • Public
  • WorldSupporters only
  • JoHo members
  • Private
Statistics
[totalcount]
Comments, Compliments & Kudos

Add new contribution

CAPTCHA
This question is for testing whether or not you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.
Image CAPTCHA
Enter the characters shown in the image.