Cultural Homogenization



David Alan Harvey/National Geographic Stock

Assimilation is related to accommodation, but it represents a more significant change. It occurs when people choose or are forced to change their ways of life and beliefs to fit in and succeed in their communities. This can lead to complete loss of culture.

  • For example, most First Nations people in Canada and the United States were forced to give up their language and culture to survive, because European immigrants brought the dominant culture, which was reinforced with official policies such as Canada's Residential School System.

Marginalization occurs when people are systematically excluded from meaningful participation in the economic, social, and political aspects of their communities. Whole categories of people are discouraged or even forbidden from true membership in society.

The victims of marginalization experience poverty, homelessness, and lack of opportunities for advancement. They are denied opportunity to fulfill themselves as human beings. This can lead to feelings of worthlessness, the loss of community, and a lack of meaning in their lives. Marginalized people suffer greatly and sometimes resort to self-destructive acts, crime, and violence.


The faces of marginalized people are legion. They can be seen in homeless persons sleeping in the subways of Manhattan or under the bridges of the Seine. They are the faces of African children wasting away from diarrhea that could be prevented if only their desperate mothers knew how to put together a simple saline solution. They are the faces of struggling farmers in South Asia whose primitive agricultural methods have not changed for generations, of reindeer herders in the Russian Far East organizing to fight for mineral rights to the land they occupy, of oppressed minority groups around the world still denied the right the vote.

UNESCO Status and Trends, 2000



Courtesy Wayne Bobrosky

One World, One Taste


More children around the world recognize the golden arches of McDonald's than any other symbol, including the cross. There is no doubt that global advertising has an impact on all of us. Consider these questions:

  • What is the impact on cultural identities of advertising through the global media?

  • Do corporations consider culture when they advertise their products in different countries?

  • Does advertising recognize diversity or lead to greater homogenization? Some products are advertised in English although they are being marketed to non-English speakers. What impact might that have on the promotion of the mother tongue?


Courtesy Wayne Bobrosky