Blindspots in Acculturation Research: An Agenda for Studying Majority Culture Change

In the last 40 years, research has investigated conditions which lead to minority members’ wanting to maintain their culture of origin, and to them wanting to adopt the majority culture. Majority members’ ideas for what minority members should do have also received attention, as have the outcomes of such preferences. We will review this impressive volume of work, situating our own research within the broader literature. As will become clear, past research has developed a blindspot for some important questions: majority and minority members will also have preferences for whether they desire majority culture change, and members of both groups will have perceptions regarding the respective outgroup’s preference. This paper will present a 2X2X2 framework yielding 8 different foci: 2 (focusing on the perspectives/wishes of the minority vs. majority) X 2 (acculturation preferences regarding oneself vs. the outgroup) X 2 (own preferences vs. perceptions of what the respective outgroup wants). This framework will be used to crystalize what is known and what is not yet explored, suggesting a research agenda for the future.