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work, or some living environments and to have difficulty adjusting to
others. In testing children, he found that children from higher
socioeconomic levels within the same ethnic group simply repeat the
same patterns of behavior, only on a more sophisticated level than
patterns produced by children from lower economic levels within the
same group. With added instruction, test familiarity, and familiarity
with the testing environment, patterns change to become more like those
of the general population. This added instruction could be considered
a form of acculturation.
Ethnic groups are often found exhibiting various degrees of
acculturation, as might be visualized by concentric rings radiating
from urban center areas to suburbia. Various segments of the same
group may engage in mutual recrimination over the different degrees
to which they exhibit acculturation tendencies. For example, some
Mexican-Americans today express resentment toward those among them
who seem to be becoming Anglo, while disdaining new arrivals from
Mexico (Sowell, 1981). There is a greater pervasiveness of diversity,
or division of ethnicity, within an ethnic group than may be apparent
to the uninitiated. Black Caribbeans and black Africans do not readily
identify with blacks in the U.S. Italians in the U.S. frequently
maintain mutual associations with other Italians from the same region
of Italy and are often intolerant of Italians from other parts of
Italy (Sowell, 1981).
Sassen-Koob's work (1979) with informal and formal ethnic group
associations among Colombians and Dominicans in New York reveals that
these associations are made predominantly along class or socioeconomic
lines. The Dominicans' associations are made up of working class