Intracultural Variation in Cross-Cultural Gerontology

Abstract

Intracultural variation refers to specifically cultural differences between individuals, all of whom belong to the same, larger cultural group. Given shared cultural beliefs and norms, individuals will nevertheless differ in their adherence to these beliefs and norms. For example, Americans may generally know and value participatory democracy and the right to vote, but Americans differ in how well they understand the process or participate in it. In a second sense, intracultural variation refers to the existence of sub-cultural groupings within a larger cultural group. For instance, as regards the latter, researchers interested in multicultural phenomena in the United States often use the broad ethnic categories devised by Office of Budget and Management (Federal Register, October 30, 1997) and employed in Census 2000 to distinguish among ethnic groups. These include five minimum categories for data on race (American Indian or Alaska Native, Asian, Black or African American, Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander, and White), plus two categories for data on ethnicity (“Hispanic or Latino” and “Not Hispanic or Latino”). Nevertheless, the research community is increasingly aware that important distinctions must be made within these broad categories. For instance, “Hispanic” or “Asian” include multiple distinct national and local cultures. “Black or African American” collapses over differences between African Americans who are descendents of slaves in the U.S. and African or West Indian immigrants. The notion of intracultural variation is related to, but different from, the notion of individual differences. The study of individual differences involves identifying and measuring within-group patterns of variation in independent and dependent variables, but such differences need not be explicitly cultural, nor do they necessarily involve the identification and characterization of subgroups. For instance, at the level of the group, one immigrant community may differ from another in levels of acquisition of English, but inspection of individual differences in formal education, access to resources, and frequency of visits to the home country may well explain these differences. These essentially psychosocial variables may be powerful predictors of English proficiency, but because they do not involve specifically cultural ideation, cultural value sets, or culturally-shaped J Cross Cult Gerontol (2009) 24:115–120 DOI 10.1007/s10823-009-9098-6