Assimilation and Public Schools
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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 interpre tation and fusion in which persons and groups acquire the mem ories, 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 su
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s, by assuring that they will not likely be assimilated into the broader majority society in the United States.
There is really nothing inconsistent about the statement that public schools in the United States serve to both assimi late and discriminate against minority group children. The seeming contradiction is even logical at one level. The major ity population in the United States wants immigrants to the United States to learn to speak the English language as it is spoken in this country, and they want immigrants to behave in socially acceptable ways. What they do not want, for the graeater part, is for minority group persons to become a part of the mainstream social life of the American majority.
REFERENCES
Gordon, M. M. (1964). Assimilation in American life. New York: Oxford University Press.
(16,1) The notion of a youth culture was quite conclusively supported by empirical research carried out by Hollingshead, Gordon, and Coleman. What insights into student subcultures did their studies provide? What kind of changes in students' norms and values, if any, do you think would be revealed by subse quent studies?
The social integration of people into groups must be analyzed within the context of a
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Some common words found in the essay are:
Gordon Coleman, United American, Native Americans, Assilimation American, United Student, REFERENCES Canaan, University Press, , Associates Publishers, North America, public schools, gordon 1964, american public schools, american society, american public, united american, native americans, canaan 1987, actor centered analysis, pp 385 406, 1 2, 1987 pp 385 406, gordon 1964 60, behavioral customs sufficiently, canaan 1987 pp,
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Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page)
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