Importance of Accommodation:
Accommodation is the way which enable people to work together whether they like it or not.
Society can hardly go on without accommodation. Since conflict disturbs social integration,
disrupts social order and damages social stability, accommodation is essentially essential to
check conflict and to maintain cooperation which is the sine qua non of social life.
It not only reduces or controls conflict but also enables the individuals and groups to adjust
themselves to changed conditions. It is the basis of social organization. As Burgess remarks:
“Social organization is the sum total of accommodation to past and present situations. All the
social heritages, traditions, sentiments, culture, techniques are accommodations………….. ”
Accommodation makes for group life. It is indispensable in modem complex society. In
accommodation the barriers between the parties have been partially broken down, social distance
weakened and formal relations established whereby groups can work together.
3. Assimilation:
Assimilation is a fundamental social process; it is that process by which individuals belonging to
different cultures are united into one. Successful accommodation sets the stage for an additional
consequences of human interactions, namely assimilation. This implies the complete merging
and fusion of two or more bodies into a single common body, a process analogous to digestion,
in which we say that food is assimilated.
For instance, American Indians adopted cultural elements of whites abandoning their own
culture. But assimilation is not limited to this single field only. For example, husbands and wives
with dissimilar background often develop a surprising unity of interest and purpose.
Assimilation is a slow and gradual process. It takes quite some time before individuals or groups
once dissimilar becomes similar. Acculturation is the first step to assimilation. Acculturation is