Ecology and the Acculturation of Cognitive and Social Styles Among Mexican American Children

Abstract

The role of ecology and acculturation is examined from the standpoint of cognitive and social styles of Mexican American children. Review of research indicates that rural Mexican children have more cooperative and field-dependent social and cognitive styles than urban Anglo American children. Mexican American children living in urban settings differ in that they tend to acculturate to the more field-independent and competitive cognitive and social styles common in urban settings. Yet these Mexican American children differ from Anglo Americans in ways predicted by traditional urbanization theories. However, a close examination of the traditional urbanization theories of Simmel, Redfield, Milgram, and Inkeles shows that these theories are limited in their usefulness in explaining the acculturation process of Mexican Americans. The theories are shown to be too global and to ignore important cultural factors such as family and kinship ties and socialization practices of Mexican Americans. A theory of acculturation that is both multifactorial and pluralistic is advanced. It is held that a multifactorial acculturation theory must account for the range in historical ecology among immigrants and the associated range in intensity and quality of their adherence to certain Mexican cultural institutions and socialization practices. Such a theory, by being pluralistic, will also recognize that acculturation will take different forms among different groups of Mexican Americans, depending on the assimilation pressures of their ecology and how these pressures are resisted. A theory must also be process oriented, which means that it must be capable of describing the psychological mechanisms by which the influence of ecology is felt by the individual. Suggestions for research are offered and social policies deriving from acculturation research are discussed.