Processes of sociocultural incorporation of the immigrant population: assimilation and multiculturality
Abstract
In this essay the different approaches and aspects regarding the incorporation of immigrants are highlighted. Specifically, the socio-political and cultural concepts and ideas are analyzed from which terms such as multiculturalism, assimilation, pluralism, integration or acculturation derive. For this, a critical analysis of different authors is carried out, talking between the different terms and observing the consequences that the different perspectives have when studying the incorporation of immigrants from a continuum that goes from total and forced assimilation to multiculturalism / interculturalism. It is therefore a question of unraveling the complexity of the sociocultural policies that are produced in host societies regarding the assimilation / integration of immigrants and the multiple relationships that can occur due to the encounter of different cultures. For this analysis, in the first place, we take into account conceptualization, that is, what we understand by certain terms such as assimilation, pluralism, integration or multiculturalism. Once the concepts have been clarified, we asked ourselves about the return of certain assimilationist policies that seemed to have disappeared, but which may have returned in more complex and subtle ways. As a result of this new assimilation, we wonder about the heterogeneity of these processes in the different immigrant groups, to end up questioning the management of cultural diversity in its different grades, from assimilation to multiculturalism / interculturalism.
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References
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