ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the suggestion that being a kind of marginal person in relation to one's own group may have some special merit. The marginals are particularly useful people. They are the ones who have the weak ties to their own group and, therefore, are more influential in transmitting some item of diffusion into their group. The difference between cultures is sometimes referred to as cultural distance. In exploring effects of ethnocentrism, as well as of marginality, it may be wise to keep in mind that the creation of bonds of reciprocity, and the acceptance of impact, may be more likely when two groups are within a certain range of cultural distance. For adoption and diffusion to occur, there must be some linkage between marginals and centrals. There may have been some centrals in the population of foreign students, but, by definition, they would be less active and less visible in the arenas of cross-cultural contact.
