biculturalism

n. Biculturalism is the condition of having or endorsing two cultures. Although the term birculturalism or bicultural is typically used to describe individuals (e.g. a bicultural child), it can also be used to describe nations (e.g., bicultural Canada, where anglophone and francophone cultures coexist) and institutions and policies (e.g., bicultural or bilingual education). Although the term is recent, the concept of biculturalism goes back to the origins of modern Canada (1774, when the British authorities allowed French Canadians full use of their language, system of civil law, and freedom to practice their Roman Catholic faith). Biculturalism should not be confused with bilingualism (having fluency in two languages), although these terms are conceptually related since often (but not always) bicultural individuals and institutions are also fluent in two languages.

Biculturalism is a very prevalent societal phenomenon. The cultural contact and mixing resulting from phenomena such as migration, colonization, economic globalization, multicultural policies, travel, and media exposure explain why more and more individuals describe themselves as bicultural or multicultural. In fact, in the United States, for instance, one of every four individuals has lived in another country before moving to the United States, has internalized values and behaviors representative of both the culture of origin (e.g., Chinese, Mexican) and the receiving U.S. host culture and thus can be described as bicultural. The prevalence of biculturalism is also large in countries such as Canada, Australia, the Netherlands, and Singapore. These impressive statistics do not include ethnic and cultural minorities who are descendants of immigrants, for whom identification and involvement with their ethnic cultures in addition to mainstream culture are also the norm. In sum, biculturalism is a prevalent phenomenon typically found in nations where migration is strong (e.g., Canada, Australia, Western Europe) or where there is a history of colonization (e.g., Hong Kong).

Biculturalism has received growing attention in psychology, particularly in the subfields of cultural, cross-cultural, social, and ethnic minority psychology, where this topic is studied at the individual (e.g., second-culture learning) and group levels (e.g., how different cultural groups interact in bicultural or monocultural societies). Early sociological views prevalent during the first half of the 20th century described biculturals as marginal people with a divided self; underlying this view was the assumption that individuals should have a single cultural identity and that involvement with more than one culture is psychologically undesirable and leads to identity confusion. Recent empirical psychological research on biculturalism, however, shows that biculturalism not only is rarely unhealthy or undesirable, but seems to have positive cognitive and social consequences for the individual (e.g., increase in metacognitive abilities, wider behavioral repertories). Further, invalidating the notion that learning a new culture is an “all-or-none” process whereby moving toward a new culture invariably implies moving away from the native culture, current research on this topic shows that biculturals can retain and “use” their two cultures through a process known as cultural frame-switching. Specifically, biculturals have the ability to switch between different culturally based cognitive frames of reference or behavioral repertoires in response to (explicit or implicit) cultural cues in the situation (e.g., language being spoken, ethnicity of people present, role expectations) which signal which behavior or frame of reference is appropriate.

Finally, it is important to acknowledge that biculturalism, according to a widely accepted framework, is only one of the four possible outcomes of situations of cultural contact or acculturation. In these situations, individuals and societies have to deal with two central issues: (1) the extent to which they are motivated to retain (in the case of immigrants) or allow (in the case of nations) involvement with the ethnic or minority culture (e.g., Mexican culture in the case of Mexican-American immigrants or native African cultures in the case of South Africa) and (2) the extent to which they are motivated to learn (in the case of immigrants) or require involvement with the mainstream, dominant culture (e.g., largely Anglo-based U.S. or Afrikaner culture). The negotiation of these two central issues results in four distinct acculturation positions: assimilation (identification with or support for the dominant culture only), biculturalism/integration (identification with and support for both cultures), separation (identification with or support for the ethnic culture only), or marginalization/diffusion (low identification with or support for any of the cultures). Empirical psychological work on the four acculturation attitudes or strategies reveals that, at least at the individual level, the most common strategy used by immigrant and cultural minorities is integration or biculturalism, followed by separation, assimilation, and diffusion. Further, individuals who use the integration strategy have the best psychological and sociocultural adaptation outcomes, while those with a diffuse strategy have the worst.

- VB-M

► See also ACCULTURATION, BICULTURAL IDENTITY, and MULTICULTURALISM