The Emerging Monoculture: Assimilation and the Model Minority

Eric Kramer

ISBN 10: 0275973123 / ISBN 13: 9780275973124

Published by Praeger (UK), 2003

About this Item

Examines the most pervasive ideology of today, globalism, and measures its impact on ordinary people. Num Pages: 352 pages, black & white illustrations. BIC Classification: JFSL. Category: (G) General (US: Trade); (U) Tertiary Education (US: College). Dimension: 242 x 163 x 30. Weight in Grams: 662. . 2003. hardcover. . . . . Books ship from the US and Ireland.

Seller Inventory # V9780275973124

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Emerging Monoculture: Assimilation and the Model Minority
• Publisher: Praeger (UK)
• Publication Date: 2003
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0275973123
• ISBN 13: 9780275973124
• Binding: Hardcover
• Condition: New

About this title

Synopsis

Kramer brings together experts from a variety of minority backgrounds and from around the world to give their perspectives on the most pervasive ideology today, globalism. The basic premise is that a developed country is different from a developed community. They need not be mutually exclusive, but neither is it assumed that they are necessarily consonant.

The various essays offer answers to such vital questions as What does it mean to become a 'global citizen'? and What does it mean to be a 'model minority' in a global economy? The process of becoming a mainstream person involves being first marginalized with the implication that something is inadequate about one's self. The process of assimilationism is manifested as various forms of enforced and/or rewarded acculturation. With the vast human migration currently underway, the notion of assimilation has become a global phenomenon. What is occurring, Kramer and his colleagues demonstrate, is a worldwide shift from the village milieu to the city lifestyle. This migration is seen as a polycentric and global phenomenon whereby the promised land is nowhere in particular, but, instead, a way of life and mindset, an urban lifestyle. This process is far more than a simple change in geography. Moving from the village to the cityscape involves a mutation in worldview and self-identity. Additional questions asked throughout the collection are What set of persuasive assumptions are leading the world in this direction? and What might be lost in the process? A provocative collection for scholars, students, and other researchers involved with development studies, multiculturalism, and urbanization.

About the Author

ERIC MARK KRAMER is Assistant Professor of Communications at the University of Oklahoma. Among his earlier publications are Consciousness and Culture: An Introduction to the Thought of Jean Grebser (Greenwood, 1992) and Postmodernism and Race, forthcoming from Praeger.