Integration means “the action or process of successfully joining or mixing with a different group of people” (“Integration”). Although this definition can imply adaptation to an existing group, integration can also be a reciprocal process of creating shared belonging across differences. In a society marked by cultural divisions, meaningful integration may require challenging conversations about difference, identity, and belonging. Our relationships to our own cultural identities also vary, shaping how we understand both ourselves and those around us. If integration depends not on eliminating these differences but on finding ways to navigate them together, how might we improve the process?

In "Intergroup Contact Theory: Examining Knowledge Sharing Among Individuals From Different Tribes," Okyere-Kwakye et al. suggest prejudice will decrease when individuals from opposing parties possess feelings of equal status, attempt to satisfy each other's concerns (cooperativeness), work together towards a common goal, and observe support from authorities, institutions, or social norms (institutional support; 88). These factors can "reduce prejudice and promote positive attitudes among people from different tribes" (93). Under these conditions, interaction can foster intimacy between individuals, thereby reducing prejudice and negative attitudes.

To improve society effectively, we must model the change we seek by making the process itself inclusive. Anna de Jong and Chloe Steadman discuss the annual beer event, Indy Man, held in Manchester, U.K., and how the flow of information online and offline prior to and during the event affected social relations. While such events appear to promote diversity and inclusiveness, as Indy Man demonstrated, its culture of enthusiasm, guided by social media, became increasingly exclusive, dominated by a narrowly defined creative, white, upper-middle class, masculinized identity (306). The absence of institutional support due to the venue's financially incentivized relationship with Indy Man may have also contributed to the growth of such fratriarchy (301).

Citing Andrea Brighenti, de Jong and Steadman note that “selective inclusion and exclusion combine into series to form an ordering mechanism that becomes the basis for the formation of social groups” (qtd. in de Jong and Steadman 296). Such environments are composed of many agents interacting through "set arrangements or institutions against a background of generally accepted norms, habits or expectations" (Atenasio 152). In a study on gang behavior, Heather Tolle explains that associations within a group inform the members of appropriate behavior, and "those who are accepting of deviant behavior will create an environment where deviant behavior is appropriate and acceptable" (871). Without adequate institutional support, intergroup contact may work against integration, reproducing the exclusivity we intend to prevent.

Social integration is also shaped by culture, notably in late adulthood. In "Culture and Well-Being in Late Adulthood: Theory and Evidence," Kitayama et al. discuss independent and interdependent models of self. Being more focused on independence, Western cultures may place significant focus on youth, advocating various high-arousal goal states such as uniqueness, control, influence, and self-reliance (568). As such expectations of societal engagement and desire for high-arousal states become more challenging to maintain with the realities of aging, they can often lead to alienation and social disengagement. By contrast, cultures influenced by Buddhism and Confucianism can emphasize an interdependent model of the self, lower-arousal goal states, filial piety, and more realistic expectations through age-graded societal roles (570). Kitayama et al. demonstrate that subjects from interdependent cultures showed increased levels of personal growth, self-acceptance, and purpose in life with age, as opposed to decreases felt by subjects from more independently oriented cultures (575). Notably, the authors suggest that each culture consider what it might learn from the other’s perspective on aging and determine for itself how older adults can best remain engaged with society and find meaning in their lives (575).

Effective integration therefore requires the right conditions. It is not simply a matter of bringing groups together, but of shaping how individuals understand themselves and their differences within group settings and their broader culture. Toward this aim, institutional and cultural support can provide a foundation for creating space for different ways of understanding the self while encouraging meaningful relationships across those differences.

Works Cited

Atenasio, David. “Blameless Participation in Structural Injustice.” Social Theory and Practice, vol. 45, no. 2, 2019, pp. 149–77, https://doi.org/10.5840/soctheorpract201942655.

de Jong, Anna, and Chloe Steadman. “(Re)Crafting Belonging: Cultural-Led Regeneration, Territorialization and Craft Beer Events.” Social & Cultural Geography, vol. 24, no. 2, 2023, pp. 292–310, https://doi.org/10.1080/14649365.2021.1939126.

“Integration.” Cambridge Dictionary, Cambridge University Press, https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/integration. Accessed 16 Oct. 2024.

Kitayama, Shinobu, et al. “Culture and Well-Being in Late Adulthood: Theory and Evidence.” American Psychologist, vol. 75, no. 4, 2020, pp. 567–76, https://doi.org/10.1037/amp0000614.

Okyere-Kwakye, Eugene, et al. “Intergroup Contact Theory: Examining Knowledge Sharing among Individuals from Different Tribes.” International Journal of Knowledge Management, vol. 15, no. 2, 2019, pp. 81–96, https://doi.org/10.4018/IJKM.2019040105.

Tolle, Heather. “Gang Affiliation as a Measure of Social Structure in Social Structure Social Learning Theory.” Deviant Behavior, vol. 38, no. 8, 2017, pp. 870–78, https://doi.org/10.1080/01639625.2016.1206712.

Pictured above
Walker, Coire: Photograph of Topographie des Terrors, Berlin, Germany. 14 Aug. 2022. Author's personal collection.