Acculturation is a process of social, psychological, and cultural change that stems from the balancing of two cultures while adapting to the prevailing culture of the society. Acculturation is a process in which an individual adopts, acquires and adjusts to a new cultural environment as a result of being placed into a new culture, or when another culture is brought to someone. Individuals of a differing culture try to incorporate themselves into the new more prevalent culture by participating in aspects of the more prevalent culture, such as their traditions, but still hold onto their original cultural values and traditions. The effects of acculturation can be seen at multiple levels in both the devotee of the prevailing culture and those who are assimilating into the culture.
Women's studies is an academic field that draws on feminist and interdisciplinary methods to place women's lives and experiences at the center of study, while examining social and cultural constructs of gender; systems of privilege and oppression; and the relationships between power and gender as they intersect with other identities and social locations such as race, sexual orientation, socio-economic class, and disability.
Communication studies or communication science is an academic discipline that deals with processes of human communication and behavior, patterns of communication in interpersonal relationships, social interactions and communication in different cultures. Communication is commonly defined as giving, receiving or exchanging ideas, information, signals or messages through appropriate media, enabling individuals or groups to persuade, to seek information, to give information or to express emotions effectively. Communication studies is a social science that uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop a body of knowledge that encompasses a range of topics, from face-to-face conversation at a level of individual agency and interaction to social and cultural communication systems at a macro level.
Galen John Strawson is a British analytic philosopher and literary critic who works primarily on philosophy of mind, metaphysics, John Locke, David Hume, Immanuel Kant and Friedrich Nietzsche. He has been a consultant editor at The Times Literary Supplement for many years, and a regular book reviewer for The Observer, The Sunday Times, The Independent, the Financial Times and The Guardian. He is the son of philosopher P. F. Strawson. He holds a chair in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Texas, Austin, and taught for many years before that at the University of Reading, City University of New York, and Oxford University.
Identity is the set of qualities, beliefs, personality traits, appearance, and/or expressions that characterize a person or a group.
Enculturation is the process by which people learn the dynamics of their surrounding culture and acquire values and norms appropriate or necessary to that culture and its worldviews.
Zoltan J. Acs is an American economist. He is Professor of Management at The London School of Economics (LSE), and a professor at George Mason University, where he teaches in the Schar School of Policy and Government and is the Director of the Center for Entrepreneurship and Public Policy. He is also a visiting professor at Imperial College Business School in London and affiliated with the University of Pecs in Hungary. He is co-editor and founder of Small Business Economics.
Education sciences, also known as education studies, education theory, and traditionally called pedagogy, seek to describe, understand, and prescribe education policy and practice. Education sciences include many topics, such as pedagogy, andragogy, curriculum, learning, education policy, organization and leadership. Educational thought is informed by many disciplines, such as history, philosophy, sociology, and psychology.
Jack Drescher is an American psychiatrist and psychoanalyst known for his work on sexual orientation and gender identity.
The psychology of self and identity is a subfield of Psychology that moves psychological research “deeper inside the conscious mind of the person and further out into the person’s social world.” The exploration of self and identity subsequently enables the influence of both inner phenomenal experiences and the outer world in relation to the individual to be further investigated. This is particularly necessary following the topic's prevalence within the domain of social psychology.
Stephen R. Lankton, MSW, DAHB is a psychotherapist, consultant, and trainer. He is the current Editor-in-Chief of the American Journal of Clinical Hypnosis (2005–2025). He is a recipient of the American Society of Clinical Hypnosis' "Lifetime Achievement Award" and “Irving Sector Award for Advancement of the Field of Hypnosis”. as well as the Milton H. Erickson Foundation “Lifetime Achievement Award for Outstanding Contributions to the Field of Psychotherapy.”
Andreas Zick is a professor of Socialization and Conflict Research at Faculty of Education Science, Bielefeld University.
John Widdup Berry is a psychologist known for his work in two areas: ecological and cultural influences on behavior; and the adaptation of immigrants and indigenous peoples following intercultural contact. The first is broadly in the domain of cross-cultural psychology; the second is in the domain of intercultural psychology.
Transgender studies, also called trans studies or trans* studies, is an interdisciplinary field of academic research dedicated to the study of gender identity, gender expression, and gender embodiment, as well as to the study of various issues of relevance to transgender and gender variant populations. Interdisciplinary subfields of transgender studies include applied transgender studies, transgender history, transgender literature, transgender media studies, transgender anthropology and archaeology, transgender psychology, and transgender health. The research theories within transgender studies focus on cultural presentations, political movements, social organizations and the lived experience of various forms of gender nonconformity. The discipline emerged in the early 1990s in close connection to queer theory. Non-transgender-identified peoples are often also included under the "trans" umbrella for transgender studies, such as intersex people, crossdressers, drag artists, third gender individuals, and genderqueer people.
Todd Kennedy Shackelford is an American psychologist and professor at Oakland University. He is best known for his work in evolutionary psychology. He is the editor in chief of the academic journals Evolutionary Psychology and Evolutionary Psychological Science. He is a fellow of the American Psychological Association and the Association for Psychological Science.
Xochitl Castaneda is the Founding Director of the Health Initiative of the Americas (HIA) at the School of Public Health, University of California (UC) Berkeley.
James Gordon Kelly was most recently an Emeritus Professor of Psychology at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) where he retired from in 1999. Following work at the Mental Health Study Center of the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), Kelly held tenured positions at Ohio State University, the University of Michigan, the University of Oregon, and UIC.
Kevin Cokley is an African-American counselling psychologist, academic and researcher. He is University Diversity and Social Transformation Professor, Associate Chair of Diversity Initiatives, Professor of Psychology at the University of Michigan Ann Arbor. Previously he was the Oscar and Anne Mauzy Regents Professor of Educational Research and Development, Department Chair of Educational Psychology, and Professor of African and African Diaspora Studies at the University of Texas at Austin, where he directed the Institute for Urban Policy Research & Analysis. He was a Fellow of the UT System Academy of Distinguished Teachers and a Distinguished Teaching Professor at the University of Texas at Austin.
Amado M. Padilla is an educator known for his research on academic resiliency, acculturation and related stress, second language learning and bilingualism. Padilla is Professor of Psychological Studies in Education and Associate Dean at the Stanford Graduate School of Education.
Peter J. Burke is an American sociologist and social psychologist. He is an expert on identity theory and has developed a theory of identity control. Burke is a Distinguished professor at University of California, Riverside.
