Assimilation in American Life: An Empirical Assessment of Milton Gordon’s Multi-dimensional Theory

Abstract

This study empirically assesses Milton Gordon's theory of interrelated stages of assimilation. I focus on one small but salient religious minority—American Jews—to show how structural assimilation is associated with other dimensions of assimilation: marital, identification, and behavior reception. Findings from multivariate analyses suggest that structural assimilation encourages Jews to marry non-Jews. Such a marriage composition has become a major determinant of identificational assimilation, with non-Jewish social relationships having important if somewhat weaker association with group identification. Social and economic attainments are moderate factors of identificational behavior that may sometimes strengthen, rather than weaken, religio-ethnic identification. The various components of structural assimilation are not significant for reception assimilation. The findings are discussed in relation to the functionalism concept, in connection with the more recent literature on immigration and assimilation and in view of the changing social context of America in the second half of the twentieth century from the dominance of the melting pot ethos to cultural pluralism.