SSHRC
I recently received a federal government to study Canadian newcomer's acculturation journey to belongingness. The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) has many grants and one of them is NSERC-CCSIF where my grant falls under. It's been 2 months since I received this year-long grant and I've formed my team of four research assistants and a math professor / colleague who will take care of the quantitative components of this ethnographic, grounded theory study.
LET'S DEFINE ACCULTURATION
Before we dive into our study, we needed to understand what acculturation is. Applied broadly, and to individuals, Gilson (2001) identifies acculturation as the changes that take place as a result of contact with culturally dissimilar people, groups, and social influences.
Nicky Lisa Cole (2018) seemed to have built on this by stating that "Acculturation is a process of cultural contact and exchange through which a person or group comes to adopt certain values and practices of a culture that is not originally their own, to a greater or lesser extent. The end result is that the original culture of the person or group remains but is changed by this process." This is a process in which an individual absorbs the culture of the host country, while retaining the traditions of their original heritage.
NOW WHAT?
This is where this whole study starts. This formed our study framework which I will discuss further in another post. For now, know that I'm trying to look at acculturation to move us to 'oneness' and lessen, if not altogether, remove the idea of 'otherness'
References
Gibson MA. Immigrant adaptation and patterns of acculturation. Human Development. 2001;44:19–23.
Cole, N.L. (2018). What Is the Meaning of Acculturation? ThoughtCo. Retrieved online from https://www.thoughtco.com/acculturation-definition-3026039