Cultural assimilation

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Cultural assimilation is the process in which a minority group or culture comes to resemble a society's majority group or fully adopts the values, behaviors, and beliefs of another group. The melting pot model is based on this concept. A related term is "cultural integration", which describes the process of becoming economically and socially integrated into another society while retaining elements of one's original culture. Cultural assimilation is opposed to multiculturalism (or a "cultural mosaic"), as assimilation involves a minority group adopting the dominant culture, while multiculturalism promotes the coexistence and preservation of multiple cultures. Another closely related concept is acculturation, which occurs through cultural diffusion and involves changes in the cultural patterns of one or both groups, while still maintaining distinct characteristics. Though anthropologists have less often used antonym of assimilation, dissimilation, in literature regarding minorities, several...

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