ABSTRACT
When immigrants arrive in a new country, they have to superimpose themselves onto an ongoing society with its own values, customs, habits and norms. The portable aspects of culture which immigrants bring with them are partly a matter of rules or guidelines about "external" components of life, such as what constitutes good manners, what, when and how to eat, how to dress properly, or how to speak to a stranger. Frequently a particular class tends to dominate in a society and its culture becomes the "official", "national" or "high" culture. Each society develops characteristic behaviours, attitudes, values, aspirations, expectations and habits, both of an abstract and general kind, as well as of a concrete and specific kind. The process of becoming familiar with the rules of society, and even of endorsing and transmitting them, occurs at least to some degree in everybody. The mechanism through which it takes place is known as "socialization".
