Culture Ethnicity and Acculturation. Compare and contrast culture ethnicity and acculturation. Answer: Culture, ethnicity, and acculturation are crucial components that define an individual identity. Accordingly, culture, ethnicity, and acculturation are similar in that they often classify people into their original cultural beliefs and norms and a newly acquired culture. Similarly, they encompass individual norms, values, race, and origin, shared among individuals through learning or acquisition.
On the other hand, culture is a social way of living that distinguishes people according to their normal way of living. It often refers to variations or differences in people’s beliefs, attitudes, languages, religions, and way of life. People’s cultures often vary in behavior, dress code, cognitive constructs, food, and languages. In most cases, cultural traditions are a heritage of passage passed from one generation to the next and are acquired through interactions among people of the same traditions (Pappas, 2021). They comprise a particular population that shares common values, knowledge, art, music, beliefs, food, and lifestyle habits. Culture is an integral component that shapes a population’s way of living and behaviors and represents specific features or characteristics of a particular population. It is imperative to note that culture is a socially acquired phenomenon and is not inherited biologically by an individual. Ethnicity is an individual’s sense of belonging to a particular group based on common values such as cultural identity, language, race, or ancestry (Yadav, 2022). Different ethnicities often have their normal way of living that defines them and vary from one another in matters concerning dress code, food patterns, and languages. Ethnic groups are often characterized by tribes or clans that share the same attributes of cultural beliefs.
Acculturation is the adoption of another culture, such as the code of dressing, food, norms, and values by a particular group or population while maintaining their cultural beliefs and practices (Cole, 2019). It is worth noting that culture and acculturation often change over time and are easily passed from one generation to the next due to common values, beliefs, and norms. Conversely, ethnicity varies and can easily change from time to time due to the acquisition of other populations’ cultures or beliefs through intermarriages.