Impact of Cultural Differences on the Acculturation Process

2) Social layer that involves first-hand contact and daily-routine communication, education, worklife:

Generally, there are not many obstacles for immigrants on this level, especially given the state support of those who came to the country via work channel. However, given the fact that work and education environment are expected to guide through the process with the aim to lead an immigrant to the integration outcomes (as stated above), the acculturation expectations of the host culture members are in favour of assimilation, thus, this three spheres issue contrary stimulus cues, therefore, they can be misunderstood and contribute to the acculturative stress and hinder positive integrative complexity.

3) Close relationships layer: love, friendship, familial context:

That layer is also characterized by the extensive government support, however, acculturation expectation of the host culture members would be logically more evident there, thus, creating contrast to the previously mentioned spheres with already described consequences.

4) Political layer:

An individual can be fully involved in the political life of the country once they become a citizen of the country. There are fast-track procedures for those who came to the country via marriage.

5) Conceptual level (beliefs and norms):

That level is suggested to be measured in accordance with cultural distance and the integrative complexity level obtained after an individual has been through all the previous levels.

Given the information found in various reports, individuals who enter Norwegian culture via worklife channel, thus making it their first layer of exposure to the host culture, are best supported by the host culture members and the government, whereas entering that culture via other channels (such as education, marriage, etc). is prone to be exposed to a bigger number acculturative stress triggers. It can be due to the host culture members' desire for migrants to abandon their heritage culture traditions, therefore, value incongruence (unfit) is emphasized by the host culture with an increased rate of stress as a result. Therefore, the most expected acculturation outcomes are assimilation, separation and integration (in that order, form more frequent to the less).

The Netherlands.

Dutch society has a very long history of immigration which has seen several waves of people coming to the country to settle. The most recent one was in the middle of the twentieth century: after both world wars a lot of refugees and economic migrants entered the culture in great numbers, According to the statistics, about 34% of the current population of the Netherlands is immigrants or children of immigrant parents (de Hart, 2007).

It has long been a pride of the Dutches that many people decided to settle in their lands as there has always been a relative low tolerance towards other cultural patterns and religions. It is noted by several historians that guest workers and were often encouraged to maintain their heritage culture first, and only then attempt to retain the host culture practices and values. Back then access to citizenship was easy, and the acculturative stress and pressure to assimilate was very low. For immigrants who were not fluent in Dutch, many government services and documents were reluctantly provided in their mother tongues (de Hart, 2007).

Dutch migration policy, that implies integration or enculturation, is fully motivated as in multiculturalism has been well-represented in the ideology of the country since the middle of the twentieth century. At the moment there is no actual legislation or official confirmation on multiculturalism policy. The mucm more popular term is `pillarization', that has always been popular in the Dutch political and cultural discourse; pillarization generally refers to generally `lite cooperation among religious and ideological communities' (Bink, 2009).

Nevertheless, several institutional instruments are to ensure multiculturalism

General instruments refer to:

· permitted adoption of multiculturalism in school curriculum (from primary to high school);

· there are many officially endorsed organizations that are involved in aid in help for migrants of certain culture (expatriates communities);

· inclusion of ethnic diversity is in the mandate of the public media;

· Dual citizenship is de facto allowed;

Targeted support programmes:

· state organisations and counselors that provide help those who have come to the Netherlands via education-related channels;

Negative factors:

· no official statement on multiculturalism has been released so far;

· no obligatory bilingual education at primary schools;

· the prevailing education language is the English language;

· funding of ethnic groups organisations is limited by annual documents

Host culture members expectations: in the survey of 2014 with 1830 participants, 47% of the participants expressed concern that the abundance of culturally enriched smaller societies within the Dutch society may hinder integration, with 17% of the mentioned participants believed that the government should implement policies that would secure the Dutch language as the prevailing one and; 21% of the participants agreed that immigrants are free to keep their home culture traditions and values.

Positioning and representation of foreigners: two policy documents, one on Minorities (Minderhedennota) and the other on the Media (Medianota), were published in 1983, and both outlined the lack of minority representation in the media.

Thus, numerous local experiments with minority media followed, and broadcast time was reserved for minority programming on the Dutch National Broadcaster (Bink n.d.). Mira Media, a national organization that bridges migrant associations to ensure advice on multiculturalism representations in the media, was founded in 1986. Nowadays, Mira Media cooperates with media outlets to ensure improvement in the representation of minorities and in the public media (Mira Media 2010).

Value distance and the language: according to the European Language Report (2011) about 37% of grown-up Norwegians are able to communicate in English well (perceived B2-level), mentioning that 43% of that part are under 30 y.o. Value distance is suggested to be measured by geographical proximity.

If we analyse Dutch culture with application of our Cultural Density Model, we have the following:

1) Societal layer:

The practise of multiculturalism is supported by the government via several above-mentioned institutions; in addition to that the idea of multiculturalism lies has been long put in the ideology of the country. There is targeted support of certain channels of acculturation (education).

2) Social layer that involves first-hand contact and daily-routine communication, education, worklife:

Similar to Norway, there are not many obstacles for immigrants on this level, especially given the state support of those who came to the country via education channel. There are no generally supported negative stereotypes and acculturation expectations of the host culture members are not pressing and creating additional acculturative stress.

3) Close relationships layer: love, friendship, familial context:

There is not much evidence on that layer, however, given there is a big number of immigrants in the country and a lot of expatriate communities along with acculturation expectations of host culture member, not much stress is expected from interaction on that layer.

4) Political layer:

An individual can be fully involved in the political life of the country once they become a citizen of the country. There are fast-track procedures for those who came to the country via marriage and education.

5) Conceptual layer (beliefs and norms):

That level is suggested to be measured in accordance with cultural distance and the integrative complexity level obtained after an individual has been through all the previous levels.

Generally, the most expected acculturation outcomes are separation, enculturation and only then integration. It is in specifically that order since there is no much demand from the host society and, therefore, the integrative complexity of immigrants is unlikely to be in favour of integration. Moreover, it is important to mention that since the majority of immigrants are encouraged to come to the country via education channel, they all happen to be in one place and time, this hindering the achievement of the integration outcomes. They are likely to superficially embrace the host culture and keep sticking to their heritage culture beliefs and norms, thus, enculturation but not integrating.

Japan.

Throughout its history Japan has always been an ethnically and racially homogeneous society. Even though there is a small immigrant population which includes Korean minority (a leftover since the time of Japanese colonization of Korea), Japan is traditionally considered to be a country of homonationalism and lack of diversity.

A few years ago there was a burst of interest in multiculturalism discourse in Japan, and much of it till these day proposes that even little degree of some social diversity itself should be treated as "multiculturalism." As Burgess (2007) once outlined when analysing the country's policy framework, "in practical terms, there is little concrete evidence of multiculturalism at work in contemporary Japan."

Japan migration policy is non-motivated, even though it has been stated in various economics studies that Japanese society will not be able to sustain a good level of life, GDA without `fresh foreign blood', i.e. young workforce as Japanese proportion of aging population and labour force participation among youngsters is not in favour of Japanese economy.

There are very few measures have been taken to ensure even so-called superficial multiculturalism on societal level:

At an institutional level, the Immigration Bureau, which is put under responsibility of the Department of Justice, is supposed to be concerned with with issues related to regulation and control. The elementary pieces of multiculturalism legislation are the Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Act, as well as the Aliens Registration Act. Foreign Residents Information Centres have also been founded and scattered over several most-inhabited cities to provide instructions to immigrants (Immigration Bureau 2010).

The Agency for Cultural Affairs was established at the beginning of the twentieth century and put under the department of the Ministry of Education. It is hold responsibility for cultural matters, including such issues as religious practices and the Japanese language use. Even though the promotion of "diverse forms of culture" is stated to be one of the agency's main principles, this seems to be related more to the promotion of various types of socio-cultural activities, rather than an affirmation of the importance of minority cultural traditions (Agency for Cultural Affairs 2009).

There are some institutions at the municipal level. Some proactive strategies have been imposed in the mid-1990s, when many towns were to create advisory councils that were composed of foreign citizens (Ishikida 2005). These advisory councils are in charge of advice and guidance on problems related to immigration.

Host culture members expectations: there are no official surveys or any other type of investigation that would contain exact data on the extent to which Japanese people want immigrants to acculturate if they want them to present in their society at all.

Given cultural description, Japanese culture is that of mononational type and usually have a dichotomy `we vs. they', in addition to that, Japanese people are prone to certain types of discrimination which will be explained below.

Positioning and representation of foreigners:

Before talking about representation of foreigners, it is worth mentioning that for Japanese society there are two type of foreigners: Asians and Europeans (even if `a white person' is not actually of Caucasian race or not from Europe), the latter we would like to refer to as non-Asian foreigners. The difference of representation of these two groups of foreigners is of huge contrast that results, however, in mainly negative representation of both types of foreigners.

Asian foreigners: according to National Report on Migration, the majority of Asian foreigners (including migrants) in Japan are of two types - Chinese and Koreans.

Chinese are usually negatively stereotyped due to the negative historical background of Chinese-Japanese relationship (i.e. communism-oriented Chinese state was in war with Japan, which sided with fascist Germany in WWII). The relationships are believed to be especially hard-to-maintain due to the differences in the countries' stance of Japanese war activities during the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945) in Nanjing, which is referred to as Nanjing Massacre with more than 300 000 civilian population dead as calculated by the world community, while Japanese official stance is the denial of the massacre. The cultural mark the war has left on both Japanese and Chinese societies can be compared to the Soviet and later Russian perception of the Great Patriotic War (he Eastern Front of World War II). Thus, negative stereotypes are held by Japanese in regard to Chinese and vice versa. (Burgess, 2007)

In no better way Japanese-Korean relationships can be characterised due to the, again, historical background, i.e. Japanese Imperial colonization of Korea.

The negative feelings towards Chinese and Korean population are fueled by the government and the press. The idea that both Chinese and Koreans come to Japan to `steal their labour' is very often in Japanese political discourse. In Japanese cinematography migrants of Asian origin are usually portrayed as illegal workers. (the same source)

Non-Asian foreigners: in mainstream culture non-Asian foreigners seem to be idolized and treated generally better than any other foreigner and even Japanese people. As stated in various research papers, Japanese consumers are more reluctant to buy a product if it has been advertised by a European-looking person, American and European celebrities are often invited to take part in promotion campaigns and appear on national entertainment channels. Thus, a stereotype was built that a non-Asian foreigner is either a model\actor or the English language teacher who came to the country for a fixed period of time and, therefore, there is no reason to communicate with them for too long. In addition to that, non-Asian foreigners are not expected to be able to speak Japanese language at all, and consequently, as reported in several paper, can be straight away ignored or avoided by a Japanese person unless there the latter is commercially motivated. Japanese people see foreigner as a threat to their peaceful existence and as soon as they see a foreigner in a non-touristic place, they would try to avoid communication and forget about the incident as soon as possible. As given in the (Drew Martin, 2005), for Japanese people foreigners seem to be a temporary inconvenience that is supposed to have to disappear shortly.

It is supposed that to these stereotype and prejudice, the majority of foreigners who stay in Japan for longer periods of time are occupied in the services such as hotels, hostess in restaurants, model agencies and external communication managers who are primarily involved in communication with foreign partners of Japanese company. Thus, even being officially employed by a Japanese company, a migrant can end up mainly interacting with other migrants.

In addition, it is important to mention that islam-related pracises are officially banned in Japan, there are even few Muslim countries embassies are present.

Value distance and the language: the Japanese language can have at least 4 graphical forms: canji, hiragana, katakana and romaji (latin transliteration). All the official documents are written in a mix of three first mentioned, the expectation is the documents of language schools where those willing to study Japanese stay. Not all migrants are capable of learning Japanese characters, being able to speak fluently, read traditional characters but write only in romaji is a very frequent phenomenon.

Unlike with the previous country, value distance is not suggested to be measured by geographical proximity. Countries in the majority of regions on the world map managed to be culturally and politically developed almost synchronically with their neighbouring countries (i.e. Scandinavian region, western Europe, Latin America, Eastern Europe), whilst west Asia (China, Japan, Korea, East of Russia, etc) does not follow the same model: the neighbouring countries are very different in their political constituency, cultural values and norms and overall social philosophy (thus, tough historical background as mentioned above).

If we analyse Japanese culture with application of our Cultural Density Model, we have the following:

1) Societal layer:

On this level there is not much done that would positively contribute to the acculturation process of the newcomers: the majority of institutions that are to provide advice and instruction are rather nominal than fully motivated. As stated above, counselors are present in a few countries. In reality, the existing institutions and organisations mainly concern about illegal immigrants and immigrant flow control rather than in-place help. Neither bicultural nor multicultural statements have been officially introduced. Moreover, such religious practises as islam are officially banned. Thus, we can say that on that layer the socio-cultural stimulus cues are non-existent.

2) Social layer that involves first-hand contact and daily-routine communication, education, worklife:

On that level no better conclusions can be made. Due to the above-mentioned Japanese attitudes and stereotypes about foreigners, there is a lack of proper interaction that would allow behavioural scripts and schemas to be formed as communication is either avoided or downplayed by the host culture members. Thus, socio-cultural stimulus cues are either non-existent again or are likely to be misunderstood. In the end, even at workplace immigrants happen to be interacting with immigrants that definitely hinders their acculturation process.

3) Close relationships layer: love, friendship, familial context:

There is not much evidence gained for us to make conclusions about density of this layer but, given the previously described layers, it is hard for a migrant to get to this layer.

4) Political layer:

Just like in any other country, a person can be fully involved in the political life of the country once they become a citizen of the country. Even though it takes a person only 5 years of life in Japan to get citizenhood, according to the Berkin (2009) Japan has one of the most hard-going procedures.

5) Conceptual level (beliefs and norms):

That level is suggested to be measured in accordance with cultural distance and the integrative complexity level obtained after an individual has been through all the previous levels.

Thus, based on the above-given analysis we can assume that the most frequent acculturation outcomes of immigrants in Japan is either separation or marginalization (as there are not many expatriate communities to relate to and to keep the heritage culture bonds). As during the majority of layers no interaction happens that would help immigrants form appropriate and expected behaviour and cultural patterns, an immigrant are prone to accumulate acculturative stress that would contribute to misformation of perceived cultural fit and, therefore, integrative complexity.

Conclusion