Assimilation vs integration

Assimilation cartoon from HarmonyStorm.com.

Assimilation: similar - the same. To become similar to something. Sameness. (by extension) The absorption of new ideas into an existing cognitive structure. The adoption, by a minority group, of the customs and attitudes of the dominant culture. (wiktionary

Cultural assimilation is a political response to the demographic fact of multi-ethnicity which encourages absorption of the minority into the dominant culture. It is opposed to affirmative philosophy (for example, multiculturalism) which recognizes and seeks to maintain differences.

Researchers have assessed that assimilation exists among immigrants because we can measure assimilation on four primary benchmarks. These core measurable aspects of immigrant assimilation that were formulated to study European immigrants to the United States are still the starting points for understanding current immigrant assimilation. These measurable aspects of assimilation are socioeconomic status, spatial concentration, language attainment, and intermarriage.^[3]

1. Socioeconomic Status is defined by educational attainment, occupation, and income. By measuring socioeconomic status researchers want to find out if immigrants eventually catch up to native-born people in terms of human capital characteristics.
2. Spatial Concentration is defined by geography or residential patterns. The spatial residential model (based on theories of Park) proposed by Massey states that increasing socioeconomic attainment, longer residence in the U.S, and higher generational status lead to decreasing residential concentration for a particular ethnic group.^[8].
3. Language Attainment is defined as the ability to speak English and the loss of the individual's mother tongue. The three-generation model of language assimilation states that the first generation makes some progress in language assimilation but remains dominant in their native tongue, the second generation is bilingual, and the third-generation only speaks English.^[3]
4. Intermarriage is defined by race or ethnicity and occasionally by generation.^[3] High rates of intermarriage are considered to be an indication of social integration because it reveals intimate and profound relations between people of different groups, intermarriage reduces the ability of families to pass on to their children a consistent ethnic culture and thus is an agent of assimilation.^[9] Intermarriage came under particular scrutiny by the Jewish community in the early-mid 20th century as Jewish leaders more and more often turned to social scientists to explain why Judaism was a typically endogamic religion. Although intermarriage was viewed as a firm base from which to begin an argument for assimilation, it was also seen as a way to gradually ease the transition into their new culture. Julius Draschler, a graduate student at Columbia University, believed that as long as people are allowed to maintain some differences, such as the Jewish practice of only marrying another Jew, they will delay the inevitable while simultaneously enriching the nation in the process of their slow assimilation. While Draschler acknowledged that assimilation was the ultimate endpoint for all American groups, he hoped to prove through his intermarriage studies that, the more gradual the process, the better. Such need to justify (or vilify) the intermarriage practice became increasingly important after the 1950's as Jews (as well as other typically endogamic cultures, such as African-Americans) began to engage in more exogamic relationships.^[10] (wikipedia).

Integration: From to integrate (from Latin integratus, the past participle of integrare 'to make a whole', from integer 'whole') + -ation. The act or process of making whole or entire. (society) The process of fitting into a community, notably applied to 'visible' (ethnic, immigrant...) minorities. (Wiktionary)

Social integration, in sociology and other social sciences, is the movement of minority groups such as ethnic minorities, refugees and underprivileged sections of a society into the mainstream of societies. Members of the minority groups thus gain full access to the opportunities, rights and services available to the members of the mainstream. (wikipedia)

Some other interesting concepts from my wiki stream:

Cultural appropriation is the adoption of some specific elements of one culture by a different cultural group. It describes acculturation or assimilation, but can imply a negative view towards acculturation from a minority culture by a dominant culture.^[1][2] It can include the introduction of forms of dress or personal adornment, music and art, religion, language, or social behavior. These elements, once removed from their indigenous cultural contexts, may take on meanings that are significantly divergent from, or merely less nuanced than, those they originally held.

Multiculturalism is the acceptance or promotion of multiple ethnic cultures, for practical reasons and/or for the sake of diversity and applied to the demographic make-up of a specific place, usually at the organizational level, e.g. schools, businesses, neighborhoods, cities or nations. In this context, multiculturalists advocate extending equitable status to distinct ethnic and religious groups without promoting any specific ethnic, religious, and/or cultural community values as central.^[1]

The policy of multiculturalism is often contrasted with the concepts assimilationism and social integration.