Biculturalism - Progressing Globalization and Mobility

Biculturalism

With progressing globalization and mobility, biculturality is becoming rather the norm than the exception. What has formerly been seen as a disadvantage has, over time, turned into a strong asset that companies want to make use of. Back in the 40s-60s scholars like Stonequist and DuBois associated bicultural people with negative characteristics, such as, double consciousness, ambivalent behavior, divided personality, not having norms, and confusion about their identity (as cited in LaFramboise, Coleman, and Gernton, 1993). These negative traits were said to only be overcome by completely internalizing this conflict (Goldberg, 1941 cited in LaFramboise, Coleman, and Gernton, 1993). Five different theories of dealing with biculturalism have developed, and will be outlined in the following section:

1. The Assimilation model assumes that bicultural people need to give up their identity (minority culture) to be accepted in the new (dominant) cultural group. In the transition phase, people will face anxiety, stress and are also said to face difficulties in school. Academic success is only given when giving up the bicultural identity (Pasquali, 1985 as cited in LaFramboise, Coleman, and Gernton, 1993).  
2. The Acculturation model builds around similar assumptions however further states that while individuals become part of the majority culture, they will always be identified with the minority culture (LaFramboise, Coleman, and Gernton, 1993). In conclusions the model suggests that personality factors play a large role in whether somebody can develop competence in a new culture or not and although often associated with lower status in society, as well as high stress levels and a “second-class” individual, those who manage to understand, combine and have control over their relationship towards the majority culture, gain cultural understanding of higher order (Ekstrand, 1978 as cited in LaFramboise, Coleman, and Gernton, 1993).
3. The Alternation model assumes that people can switch between two cultural settings where both cultures have the same status (Ogbu & Matute-Bianchi, 1986 as cited in LaFramboise, Coleman, and Gernton, 1993).
4. The Multicultural model revolves around multifaceted and multidimensional institutional sharing, where society can develop higher acceptance, tolerance and learn from each other and where there is no need for merging private and public identity (Berry et al., 1984 as cited in LaFramboise, Coleman, and Gernton, 1993).
5. The Fusion model assumes the possibility of two cultures combining and forming a new culture (Gleason, 1979 as cited in LaFramboise, Coleman, and Gernton, 1993).

The most important skills related to developing bicultural competence are said to be knowledge of cultural beliefs and values, Positive attitude towards both groups, culturally competent (know, appreciate and internalize different cultures), ability to communicate, role repertoire, and groundedness (LaFramboise, Coleman, and Gernton, 1993).

The second article focuses on Bicultural Identity Integration (BII) and examines the extent to which bicultural people feel that their two cultures are able to work together/contradict each other by looking at personality factors, acculturation stress, acculturation attitudes, and bicultural competence to predict BII . The main findings were that there are two main constructs to consider: cultural distance and cultural conflict. Further, people high on BII are reported to find a way of integrating both cultures, whereas people low on BII were seen to face difficulties integrating their two cultural identities (Benet-Martinez & Haritatos, 2005).