If you're seeing this message, it means we're having trouble loading external resources on our website. Show If you're behind a web filter, please make sure that the domains *.kastatic.org and *.kasandbox.org are unblocked. In societies where there are different kinds of people, one group is usually larger or more powerful than the others. Generally, societies consist of a dominant culture, subcultures, and countercultures. Dominant CultureThe dominant culture in a society is the group whose members are in the majority or who wield more power than other groups. In the United States, the dominant culture is that of white, middle-class, Protestant people of northern European descent. There are more white people here than African Americans, Latinos, Asian Americans, or Native Americans, and there are more middle-class people than there are rich or poor people. SubcultureA subculture is a group that lives differently from, but not opposed to, the dominant culture. A subculture is a culture within a culture. For example, Jews form a subculture in the largely Christian United States. Catholics also form a subculture, since the majority of Americans are Protestant. Members of these subcultures do belong to the dominant culture but also have a material and nonmaterial culture specific to their subcultures. Religion is not the only defining aspect of a subculture. The following elements can also define a subculture:
W. E. B. Du BoisOne important theorist of subcultures was W. E. B. Du Bois. The first African American to receive a Ph.D. from Harvard University, Du Bois was one of the most renowned sociologists of race relations in the United States. He described racism as the predominant problem that American culture faced in the twentieth century. He paid special attention to the effects of what he called the “color line” in America and studied the impact of racism on both whites and blacks. CountercultureA counterculture is a subculture that opposes the dominant culture. For example, the hippies of the 1960s were a counterculture, as they opposed the core values held by most citizens of the United States. Hippies eschewed material possessions and the accumulation of wealth, rejected the traditional marriage norm, and espoused what they called free love, which was basically the freedom to have sex outside of marriage. Though hippies were generally peaceful, they opposed almost everything the dominant culture stood for. Not all countercultures are nonviolent. In 1995, the federal building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, was blown up, killing 168 people and injuring many others. That horrific crime brought to light the existence of another counterculture in the United States: rural militias. While such groups go by several names, their members tend to be people who despise the U.S. government for what they see as its interference in the lives of citizens. While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions. Select Citation Style Copy CitationShare Share Share to social media Facebook Twitter URL https://www.britannica.com/topic/assimilation-societyGive Feedback External Websites Feedback Corrections? Updates? Omissions? Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article (requires login). Feedback Type Your Feedback Submit FeedbackThank you for your feedback Our editors will review what you’ve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. External Websites
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By Elizabeth Prine Pauls Table of ContentsKey People:Robert E. Park...(Show more)Related Topics:social change Americanization acculturation Anglicization Russification...(Show more) See all related content → assimilation, in anthropology and sociology, the process whereby individuals or groups of differing ethnic heritage are absorbed into the dominant culture of a society. The process of assimilating involves taking on the traits of the dominant culture to such a degree that the assimilating group becomes socially indistinguishable from other members of the society. As such, assimilation is the most extreme form of acculturation. Although assimilation may be compelled through force or undertaken voluntarily, it is rare for a minority group to replace its previous cultural practices completely; religion, food preferences, proxemics (e.g., the physical distance between people in a given social situation), and aesthetics are among the characteristics that tend to be most resistant to change. Assimilation does not denote “racial” or biological fusion, though such fusion may occur. Attempts to compel minority groups to assimilate have occurred frequently in world history. The forced assimilation of indigenous peoples was particularly common in the European colonial empires of the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries. In North and South America, Australia, Africa, and Asia, colonial policies toward indigenous peoples frequently compelled their religious conversion, the removal of children from their families, the division of community property into salable, individually owned parcels of land, the undermining of local economies and gender roles by shifting responsibility for farming or other forms of production from women to men, and the elimination of access to indigenous foodstuffs. Forced assimilation is rarely successful, and it generally has enduring negative consequences for the recipient culture. More From Britannica Voluntary assimilation, albeit usually effected under pressure from the dominant culture, has also been prevalent in the historical record. One such case dates to the Spanish Inquisition of the late 14th and 15th centuries, when many Muslims and Jews responded to religious persecution by voluntarily converting to Roman Catholicism. Known as Moriscos and Marranos, respectively, they secretly continued to practice their original religions. Another example of voluntary assimilation occurred during the 18th and 19th centuries, when millions of Europeans moved to the United States. In this case, being able to “pass” as a member of the dominant Anglo-Protestant culture was an important hedge against violent nativist groups such as the Know-Nothing Party (see ). Although popular notions generally presume that complete assimilation occurred among immigrants of European descent, research in the late 20th and early 21st centuries advocated a more nuanced and pluralistic view of historical culture change among American ethnic groups. What is a group that is part of the dominant culture but that differs from it in some important respects?Subculture is a group that is part of the dominant culture but differs in some respect.
What is dominant culture and subculture?A subculture is a dynamic, generally informal group that forms outside of the main culture. Subcultures form around shared characteristics: tenure, department, social background, or even sports affiliations. Subcultures maintain many characteristics of the dominant culture while maintaining a distinct identity.
What is an example of dominant culture?Examples of dominant cultures
Also, ethnic groups are said to exist in the United States in relation to a dominant culture, generally seen as English-speaking, of European ancestry, and Protestant Christian faith.
What is the difference between a subculture and a counterculture?A subculture is a culture shared by a smaller group of people who are also part of a larger culture but has specific cultural attributes that set them apart. Countercultures are groups whose members adopt cultural patterns in opposition to the larger culture.
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