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Assimilation and Public Schools

Assimilation is a term used by sociologists to describe the incorporation of the various racial and ethnic groups which have immigrated to the United States into American society (Gordon, 1964, p. 60). Assilimation in American society has never accorded a great deal of significance to the culture and ethos of the people being assimilated (Gordon, 1964, p. 60). It has always been a situation wherein immigrant cultures were expected to adopt the prevailing American culture and ethos during assimilation. The only times this situation has been reversed have been with respect to Native Americans. When the European colonists first established themselves in North America, they not only made no effort to adapt themselves to the native cultures, they insisted that the Native Americans should adopt their European cultures (Gordon, 1964, p. 61). To this day, Native Americans suffer in the United States, if they attempt to maintain their own cultures, as opposed to embracing the prevailing majority culture in the United States. On a formal level, assimilation is a "process of interpretation and fusion in which persons and groups acquire the memories, sentiments, and attitudes of other persons or groups, and, by sharing their experience and history, are incorporated

with them into a common life" (Gordon, 1964, p. 62). There is a great deal to be said for such a process, in that, if it works, a united people is the result. What is not good nor justifiable about such a process, however, is that it is a oneway streetone group is expected to do all of the adapting. A just assimilation, by contrast, would be one in which the cultures of the different groups are shared, and in which the unifying of peoples is the result of adaptation on both sides.

In spite of all of the complexity implied in the assimilation process described above, immigrants in the United States are typically considered to be assimilated at that point where ...

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Assimilation and Public Schools. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 17:01, March 28, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1683697.html