The concept of enculturation is used as a synonym for inculturation . This term, coming from the English word inculturation , refers to the process that a person develops as they integrate into a society and a culture with which they are in contact.
Enculturation, which can also be developed by a group of individuals, is linked to learning that is partly conscious, but also unconscious. As the process progresses, the subject begins to share practices, customs, expressions and ways of thinking with the inhabitants of the community in which they were inserted.
The person can join a group that has different cultural characteristics for geographical, historical, religious, generational reasons, etc. Typically, the host sector rewards those behaviors that adapt to its norms and, on the contrary, condemns those that constitute a deviation from said precepts.
What enculturation allows, in short, is for the individual to adjust to the social context . There is an initial enculturation that occurs in early childhood with the socialization of the child. Then, throughout life, other enculturation processes related to changes in social conditions are generated.
Precisely, the concept of enculturation refers to the induction, invitation and obligation to adapt to certain traditional behaviors and ways of thinking on the part of individuals from one or more generations towards the younger ones. Let us not forget that living beings are born in a historical and cultural context, governed by rules that support a very complex series of social structures; If we do not respect them, we put at risk the stability of those who believe they depend on them.
In this sense, we can understand enculturation as a process that each generation carries out in the next to program its behavior and adapt its way of thinking to the precepts that the first considers respectable, as if it were the manufacture of human replicas that They will continue along the same path as their ancestors, without questioning the direction or the rhythm.
Perhaps the secret that keeps enculturation going lies in the aforementioned condemnation of those who do not respect the norms imposed by society. This is not manifested in the form of a legal penalty, although in certain cases the lack of adaptation to cultural rules may coincide with imprisonment, but rather they are transmitted and executed in a much more subtle, sometimes tacit, way through the rejection or contempt.
The counterpart of the punishments are the "rewards" or the advantages that we acquire if we adapt without problems to the impositions of the geographical region in which we find ourselves. Just as in the opposite case, these are not necessarily issues that are easy to notice, but rather a series of comforts, so to speak, to which those who conform to the norms and follow the same path as their parents and grandparents have access: inheriting a house, obtain a job in the family business, receive money from the elderly whenever they need it, etc. Those who refuse enculturation may experience just the opposite: the loss of sympathy and empathy on the part of their families and the absolute absence of help to make their way in life.
While enculturation involves integration into a society through the adoption of beliefs, customs and ways of acting that allow one to function according to the principles shared by the members of the community, the idea of acculturation is used to refer to the loss of own cultural traits to adopt new ones.